


A Mighty Friendship

by kristophine



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Angst, Bisexuality, F/M, M/M, but one out of three ain't bad right?, watch two relationships fall apart painfully!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 22:22:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 46,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15738489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristophine/pseuds/kristophine
Summary: Summer in Milwaukee was not about to give up the ghost. The air crackled with heat, static electricity ready at any moment to burst into lightning, and Dana and Casey were sitting outdoors at their favorite burger joint. Casey was two beers in and feeling good. Dana was talking about the Eastern conference finals, because she had never been able to let go of anything in her life, punctuating her points with aggressive jabs of French fries.“Anyway,” she said, popping a fry into her mouth, “that’s what I said to Dan about it.”“I’m sure he listened attentively.” Casey tried to hide the smile that was struggling through.“He’s a good kid.” She took a drink of her soda. “Gets along with everybody. Kind of flighty, though.”





	A Mighty Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to saathi1013, who told me I wasn't finished yet nine thousand words ago and was absolutely right.

_Summer in Milwaukee was not about to give up the ghost. The air crackled with heat, static electricity ready at any moment to burst into lightning, and Dana and Casey were sitting outdoors at their favorite burger joint. Casey was two beers in and feeling good. Dana was talking about the Eastern conference finals, because she had never been able to let go of anything in her life, punctuating her points with aggressive jabs of French fries._

_“Anyway,” she said, popping a fry into her mouth, “that’s what I said to Dan about it.”_

_“I’m sure he listened attentively.” Casey tried to hide the smile that was struggling through._

_“He’s a good kid.” She took a drink of her soda. “Gets along with everybody. Kind of flighty, though.”_

_“First, that’s rich, coming from you. Second, he’s not flighty. He’s… high-energy.” Casey always felt the need to defend Danny when people brought him up, which it turned out they did a lot; it was hard to work around Danny, who practically vibrated with enthusiasm and always had a quick retort ready, without developing an opinion. Even the people who adored him would say,_ Well, he’s— _as if Danny had something to apologize for in being so frenetic._

_“We should bring him back next year.”_

_“Oh, definitely.”_

_Dana glanced sidelong at him, smirking over her drink. She was trying out red hair; it glowed almost maroon in the setting sun. “I think he has a little crush on you.”_

_Casey blinked. “What? No.” The denial was automatic, reflexive. He hadn’t thought—but then. He found himself cataloguing Danny, the way he talked, walked, touched—no._

_Dana shrugged. “Maybe not. He follows you around like a lost puppy, though. Are you my mother?” She laughed at her own joke. “Careful. Being a role model looks exhausting.”_

_“You’ll never know,” he said, brain still churning._

_When he went home to Lisa that night, she looked up from the flotsam and jetsam of her studies and smiled at him. “How was work?”_

_“Oh, fine,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head, breathing in the smell of her hair. She turned her face up to him for a kiss, which went places that left the kitchen table in ruins. Being newlyweds had some perks._

_When he went back to work the next day, he watched Danny, even though he tried not to. And he came to the unsettling conclusion that Dana might be right: Danny looked at Casey constantly, that head-tilt like a bird’s to look up over his shoulder, almost coy, almost flirting. Just on the edge of appropriate._

_Had anyone else noticed? Did anyone think—_

_But the days marched on and blurred together, and Casey forgot to think about it. Almost. Mostly._

_The night before Danny was due to leave town and head back to Dartmouth, they were drinking at Danny’s apartment, Danny and Casey and a couple of other people—Dana, perched on the back of the couch, flipping through a copy of Sports Illustrated; Mikey from Sound, elbow-deep in a rum and coke, explaining something to Jorge from Wardrobe, who was nodding with tolerant goodwill._

_Casey was sitting in the armchair, and Danny was sitting at his feet, back against the coffee table. Smiling up at him. Later, Casey had no idea what they were talking about. Baseball, he thought, because if you talked to Danny long enough sooner or later everything turned into baseball._

_“You know,” said Casey, “a while ago I was talking to Dana and she thought you might—I don’t know, have a crush on me.”_

_He didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe a shamefaced brush-off, maybe a mumbled confession. He didn’t know why he’d asked._

_He didn’t expect Danny’s face to drain of color. “What?” asked Danny, voice too loud in the small room. “Why?”_

_The other people looked over at them. Casey waved them away: nothing to see here._

_“No real reason,” said Casey, feeling wrong-footed. “She just—I guess she thought you, uh, look up to me—” and he winced, because he was sounding more and more like a jerk as he talked._

_“Well, yeah, but that’s not—I don’t—wow.” Danny shook his head, lips pressed together grimly. “You know, it’s one thing to hear this shit from, from guys in the locker room, or whatever. That’s just—everybody jokes about it. But not at_ work, _Casey. Not at work.”_

_“I’m sorry.” Casey felt the inadequacy of the apology, the words hollow in his mouth._

_Danny kept shaking his head. “I don’t know_ why _—but whatever. Whatever.” He stood up. “I’m going out for a smoke.”_

_Casey didn’t smoke. He moved as if to stand anyway, but Danny put out a hand to stop him._

_Casey watched Danny go through the doorway, and he had a sense that something important was happening, but he’d be damned if he knew what._

 

When the network sale went through, it was like a switch flipped: one minute Danny looked like a guy going to the guillotine, partying like it was 1789, and the next there was a dawning relief. Casey could feel it in his own face, too, and struggled to hide it. He didn’t want to look like he felt for the audience at home. The range of emotions an anchor could reasonably and appropriately show on air, he was fairly sure, did not include what he felt at that moment.

It was a cacophonous thundering inside his head, bells ringing, gongs clashing; somewhere Ed McMahon was handing him a comically gigantic cardboard check and a whole batch of balloons, and women were fainting in the background.

But on air, he managed to say, “And thank you very much for correcting my every mistake, no matter how small, lo these many years.”

Danny was grinning back at him. “What are friends for?”

“Annoying the hell out of you?”

“Exactly!” And then Danny went back to the Orioles. He tossed in a terrible bird-related pun that Casey _knew_ hadn’t been on the teleprompter, which was always a sure sign that Danny was in a fantastic mood.

 

When they wrapped up the show, no one was in the mood to go home. Dana was voting, loudly, for Anthony’s, while Natalie argued a compelling counter-point for “literally _anywhere_ else, Dana, I am so _tired_ of Anthony’s, and besides I bet your hot future boss won’t even be there,” which made Dana grimace and tug Natalie aside for a brief conversation about work-appropriate conversational topics. Casey wasn’t betting on any lasting impact from that. He was, however, curious and perhaps even a touch concerned at the inclusion of the “hot” rider.

Danny said, “I’ll catch up with you guys once you figure it out.” He was getting up from the desk, glancing over and over again towards the glass-walled greenroom that loomed above them in the distance.

“You forget something?” Casey asked, curious.

Danny bobbed his head from side to side. “Maybe.”

“Like what?”

But Danny was already up and moving, and he didn’t hear Casey’s question. Or he didn’t answer.

 

Dan found the scraps of paper in the trash can. He came up with them, pieced them together to be sure he had the whole number, feeling like a man who’d dived for a shipwreck and emerged with the sunken treasure.

He turned to the phone, and then stopped.

Should he—maybe he shouldn’t—there were _options,_ suddenly, and those options were frightening. Because Rebecca was beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous, and back in his life, _blonde_ now for some absurd reason, and divorced. Really, genuinely divorced. Legally divorced. Divorced with a certain finality that only the courts could grant.

He picked up the phone and dialed.

She picked up immediately. “Danny?”

And the fact that she _said_ it like that, right away, made it all clear. This was right. This was the right decision. She’d been expecting _him_ to call, no one else; she’d been expecting him to call because she knew she’d made a mistake in leaving, and she knew that _he_ knew that.

“So about dinner,” he said, smiling into the phone.

 

Casey hadn’t meant to _follow_ Danny, exactly, but he’d gone to leave his suit jacket and dress shirt and tie with Wardrobe, and he’d seen Danny going into the greenroom and he’d—well, he’d stuck his head in just to see if Danny needed anything.

Danny didn’t need anything at all, if that smile was any indication. He couldn’t quite hear what Danny was saying, but Danny laughed, a big, bright laugh, not meant for anyone but the person on the other end of the line. Casey could guess who that was.

Casey backed away and pulled the door to behind him.

Danny met up with them on their way out the door in an uncoordinated herd. “I’m going to take off pretty soon,” he said to Casey.

“Rebecca?” asked Casey.

Danny nodded. He had a high flush along his cheekbones still. He looked dazed by his good fortune.

Casey clapped him firmly on the back. “Good luck and Godspeed.”

Danny laughed, which seemed like it startled him as much as anyone. “I can’t—I can’t get _over_ this, you know? They’re keeping us. We’re—the _show,_ Casey. The show.”

“I know.” Casey slid his hand up to the back of Danny’s neck, squeezing. Casey was smiling, too. “I know.”

“It doesn’t get better than this.”

“It really doesn’t.”

“Screw the Laker girls and the white sand beaches, seriously, L.A. is a _pit,_ I was just saying that so you’d come with us.”

That provoked a sharp and uncomfortable twinge. _Come with us—_ Danny had decided, then, that he and Dana would be going? Had Dana decided? Had she been on board with that? But that was something to put away; it didn’t matter anymore. The necessity for a decision had been removed.

“And now you’re coming with _us,_ ” said Casey. “To the bar.”

“To the bar!” Danny pumped his arm. Casey’s hand fell off the back of his neck as everyone jostled through the exit.

 

Anthony’s was loud. It was particularly loud because everyone from Sports Night had lost their collective minds, and Kim was actually smiling at Dan in a way that made him seriously reconsider whether—but no. He was going to go see Rebecca in an hour. They’d eat, they’d talk, they’d decide on names for the future hypothetical kids.

Then Kim leaned a little to the left and kept smiling, and he realized she’d been looking at someone behind him anyway. He craned around to see.

“Dan!” Kim smacked his arm. “Don’t be so obvious.”

“I just want to know who’s so cute—” He twisted around again. It was a woman, which made him raise his eyebrows, but he couldn’t fault Kim’s taste; she was a stunner, a tall, elegant woman in stiletto heels and a little black dress, with a jet-black curtain of hair that fell to her mid-back. “Damn,” he said, and whistled through his teeth.

Kim smacked him again, harder. “Don’t blow it for me!”

“I would never. Hey, if you get a chance, go for it, all right? She is a work of _art._ ”

Kim rolled her eyes, but she smiled. “I’m going to _try_ if you just shut _up_ for a couple of minutes.”

“Sure, sure.” Dan leaned back in his chair, letting his shoulders relax. Casey was up at the bar grabbing them drinks.

“Are you going to try to cut in?”

“What? No. I’m going out with Rebecca tonight.”

Kim made a face that looked a little bit like she was going to sneeze. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s, uh—you’re going to go for it?”

“It’s just dinner. We’ll see where it goes.” He smiled at her. “We can pick out schools for the kids later.”

Kim’s eyebrows drew together in the middle and climbed, and her lips curved downward in a smile like an umbrella had gotten blown inside-out. “Sure, Dan.”

“What, you think it’s too soon?”

“I think it is too soon.”

“Fine, we’ll wait two, three weeks before I spring it on her that I think our kids should go to private school.”

“She wants kids?” asked Kim cautiously.

Now _that_ was treading a little too close to reality, so Dan just shrugged. Casey, with impeccable timing, returned from the bar and slid a beer to Dan. Kim went back to peering around Dan with unconcealed interest.

“Is she looking?” Dan asked Kim.

“Danny!” Casey was exasperated.

“Not for me! For Kim.”

“Oh.” Casey turned to look.

Kim hit him, much harder than she’d hit Dan. “Don’t be weird!”

“I’m not being weird!” Casey looked over at Dan. “Who’s looking? What’s happening?”

“Kim’s trying to pick up a goddess. Like we’re talking Mata Hari type.”

Kim kicked him under the table. Casey blinked a few times.

“Oh.” Casey took a sip of his beer. “Well, your first mistake was in saying anything to Dan. He’s not subtle.”

“Me, not subtle? How dare you.”

“ _Neither_ of you are subtle,” muttered Kim. “I’m just going to go over there.”

“Do it!” Dan raised his bottle to salute her. Casey followed suit. She discreetly gave them the finger, low and close to the table, as she got up and left.

“She’s got good taste,” said Dan contemplatively. “I mean, did you _see_ that woman?”

“I didn’t realize Kim was…” Casey trailed off.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Flexible? Open-minded? Or even _bisexual,_ Case, you can say it. Come on, it’s the twenty-first century.”

“How do you get to be the cool one here?” Casey frowned at him, folding his arms across his chest sullenly. “It’s very off-putting.”

“I’m just cooler than you.”

“Yeah, well,” said Casey, and stopped.

“What?”

Their shoulders were brushing; he could feel Casey tensing.

“You weren’t always,” said Casey. “Cool about it.”

“What?”

“Back in—your first summer. Milwaukee.” Casey uncrossed his arms and slid a bowl of peanuts over in front of himself. He was paying way too much attention as he shelled one.

“What?” Dan said again, baffled.

“I said—I said something and you—” Casey gestured vaguely between them.

“I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about.”

“It was the party,” said Casey intently, staring at a peanut, picking at the shell with the edge of a fingernail. “The last party.”

“The last—” Dan said, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. _The last party. Casey’s face, eyes owlish with a little bit of a buzz on. Looking strangely hang-dog about the summer ending. Dan sitting with his back pressing into the sharp edge of the coffee table, uncomfortable but not moving because it was so good to be near Casey. Knowing that was going to be the last time, the last time for a while. Casey saying the words,_ a crush on me, _and Dan’s ears ringing with it._

They sat in silence for a minute.

“Oh,” said Dan.

“I didn’t mean—” Casey shrugged, cracking the shell decisively. “Didn’t mean anything by it. You seemed…”

Dan thought he should probably try to rescue Casey from this, from talking about _feelings_ and how people _seemed,_ but he’d gotten swamped by the memory like a stiff wave hitting him at the beach, like the way a barrel would collapse on him when he was surfing. He’d be staring at the circle of daylight at the other end getting smaller and smaller, hoping against hope he’d shoot the tube and make it out. And then the water would be all around him, filling his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his ears, and it would be an incomprehensible jumble.

“Freaked out,” Casey finished after an interminable pause.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “Yeah, I—well, I was younger and people had said—they’d said some pretty crappy things to me when I was covering events, you know, because I was young and short. Comparatively short. And my hair was longer. I was a little sensitive about it, is all.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it.” Dan shrugged jerkily. “I had a great job. It didn’t matter if—so some people were assholes, so what?”

“Okay,” said Casey.

They said nothing. Casey took another slow drink off his beer. Dan picked at the label on his.

“It’s just,” said Casey abruptly.

Dan lifted his head.

“I don’t know when that _changed._ Somewhere in there it changed. Right? You—I’ve never heard you say anything about the—”

“I didn’t—it wasn’t like I was _homophobic,_ Casey, I was just uncomfortable with the way people were talking to _me._ About me.”

“Oh.”

“I never had a problem with anybody.”

“Okay.”

“And you…” Dan picked more vigorously at the label. One corner was starting to come up. “You got a problem with anybody? I mean, from how very, very angry you get with Jerry Falwell, I would assume not.”

“No.” Casey shook his head decisively. “My dad did. So it took me—I wasn’t… perfect, right out of the gate. But, uh, mostly, I don’t—I don’t say that kind of stuff. Anymore.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

“And Jerry Falwell is responsible for some _jackass_ trying to blow up our _building_ so it’s not just ideological with him, it’s personal.”

“Did they really try, though? I mean, yeah, they called in a threat, but—”

“Danny, you are supposed to be on my side about this!”

“Fine, yes, we were inches from death.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

“And you could totally take Jerry Falwell.”

“Damn right I could.” Casey nodded.

“You’ve got some height and some bulk.”

“Plus, he’s, like, seventy years old and the Crypt Keeper.”

“He doesn’t have the benefit of a Dorian Gray style portrait, that’s for sure.”

“All his evil just shows on his wrinkly dried onion face.”

Dan wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Plenty of evil to show.”

“That’s right.”

“Think Kim’s going to get lucky?”

“ _Oh,_ yeah.” Casey snorted. “Kim has a gift. A certain talent.”

“A particular beauty.”

“A highly symmetrical face.”

“A body that won’t quit.”

“Has she left already?”

Dan glanced back over his shoulder. “Son of a gun, I think she has.”

“Smooth operator.”

“What’d I tell you?”

“ _I_ told _you_ that she has a gift.”

“So you did.” Dan felt a smile coming back. He tapped the neck of his bottle against Casey’s in a sort of toast. “So you did.”

They both drank.

“Where are you meeting up with Rebecca?”

“Her hotel bar.”

“Not bad.”

“Yeah. I don’t know where it’s going, but I have a good feeling about it.”

Casey nodded, tilting his bottle on the table, spinning it languidly back and forth. “A good feeling.”

Dan looked up at the ceiling. “She was—I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that she was the love of my life. She just blew me away from day one. Knocked me off balance.”

“Like when you said park all covered with—”

“ _Yeah,_ like that.” Dan found himself grinning. He still couldn’t quite look at Casey. “She—challenged me, you know? She was so _smart_ and so funny. She kept up with me.”

“Not an easy task,” Casey said. He let the beer tip back to settle onto the table and pulled the bowl of peanuts over again.

“You know how it is.”

Casey cracked a peanut shell and put a peanut in his mouth, distending his cheek like a chipmunk. He raised his eyebrows and heaved a sigh, nodding. “I miss it.” He made a face. “I know I’m not supposed to miss my ex-wife.” He always settled a lot of weight on _ex,_ saying it with the hard, brittle force of a man who had been able to just say _wife_ for a decade. “But Lisa—God, she was a bitch, but she was a bitch who was _funny,_ and I miss that like hell sometimes.”

“Huh,” said Dan.

“And Dana…” Casey trailed off, looking over to where Dana was talking to Natalie with big, expansive gestures. She was leaning back against a wall and smiling, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She was either drunk or very happy or both. “That’s all… fucked up.”

“Are you going to un-fuck it?”

“I don’t know if it can be un-fucked.”

“If you don’t _try_ to un-fuck it, it will definitely remained un-un-fucked.”

“That’s just fucked.”

“No, I’m right. Action is—shit, that’s a Sartre quote or something like that. Action is truth? The only truth is action! No, that’s still not right.”

“No, I meant that was a double negative. Un-un-fucked is just fucked.”

“And that’s why you’re no fun at parties.”

“I think you’re mangling Aurelius.”

“It’s not Sartre?”

“It’s not even _right._ ”

Dan sighed. “The point is, you have to _do_ something if you want something to happen, and you don’t have an infinite amount of time to wait around.”

“Now you’re getting into Goethe.”

“What?”

“Die Kunst ist lang, das Leben kurz, das Urteil schwierig, die Gelegenheit flüchtig.”

Dan waved his hands in wordless frustration.

“Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.”

“You could have just _said_ that.”

“I could have, but why miss an opportunity to remind you that I speak German?”

“I should have known you never would.”

Casey gave him an odd sideways smile. “You think I should go for it again?”

“After the last time was such a spectacular slow-motion car crash?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude, I’m going to dinner with Rebecca. I think you can guess where I stand on revisiting spectacular slow-motion car crashes.”

Casey smiled, and it got wider and wider until he was laughing. He laughed so hard his eyes got wet.

“I’ve got to hand it to you,” said Casey, when he could breathe again. “You’ve given up on pretending to be an expert.”

“I’m an expert of sorts, but I’m particularly skilled at creating disasters.”

Casey gave him a little head shake and a dry chuckle.

“Although,” Dan added, “I thought you discouraged fraternization in the office.”

“I discourage a lot of things. I can’t be expected to keep track of them all.”

“I see.”

At length, Dan extricated himself, slapping Casey’s shoulder as he got to his feet.

“Off to Rebecca’s?” asked Casey.

“You know it.”

“Don’t have too much fun.”

“We’ll see about that.” Dan grinned at Casey and made his way to the door. There was a cab out there with his name on it, and the night had an early-summer wakefulness that made him feel alive.

 

Casey watched Danny go, with a spring in his step that hadn’t been there in a long time.

Casey took another pull off his beer. Dana sat next to him in the chair still warm from Danny’s body.

“Hi,” she said.

He smiled at her. “Hi.”

She looked down at her hands, slowly twisting them together the way she always did when she was nervous.

“Casey,” she said, “if I asked you out right now, what would you say?”

He found himself laughing almost silently into his bottle.

“I think I’d say yes.” He tipped the bottle up and drank.

A smile broke out over her face, lighting her up like sunshine.

 

In the morning, Danny came into the office late and humming, both good signs.

“I take it things went well,” said Casey, rolling back in his chair and spinning to face Danny.

Danny broke off in the middle of humming something unrecognizable and badly off-key. “They did indeed, my friend. They did indeed go well.”

“Very well?”

“Exceedingly well.”

“Did you spend the night at home?”

“I did not.”

“So you’re back on?”

“We’re back on.”

“Well.” Casey spread his hands, smiling. “Sounds like you’re off to the races.”

“Which races? I could see this as a marathon. It certainly was no sprint.”

“I was thinking Kentucky Derby. Flat-out effort, a lot of heavy breathing.”

Danny laughed. “I can see it in that light.”

He could have said something to Danny then about Dana, but he didn’t. Danny was in a fine mood, and it would have been selfish to spoil it by making it about Casey instead.

“I’m going to marry her.” Danny pointed his pencil at Casey. “Just you wait and see.”

“If you want a spring wedding, you’ve got a bit of a wait ahead of you.”

“Maybe we’ll go summer. Knock it out in the next couple of weeks.”

“Then you’ll have a hard time getting a guest list together.”

“She’s still wounded, you understand. It might take time to chip away at her defensive walls.”

“You’ll take them down a brick at a time, I know.”

“I will!”

“I said I know.”

“I think she thinks I’m afraid of commitment.”

“She’d have had to have missed a _lot_ about that last time around. You were ready to commit before she was even _divorced._ ”

Casey knew as soon as he said it that it had come out mean-spirited, and Danny frowned at him.

“Case,” he said. “I know things didn’t go well last time.”

“They did not.”

“But this is different.”

“It is different, yes.”

“She’s done with Steve.”

“Finalized divorce in a court of law will tend to do that.” Casey turned back to his computer. The back of his neck felt itchy. “I agree that this is different, and I wish you the very best of luck.”

Danny watched him for a couple more minutes before turning back to his own computer and getting into the work of the day.

 

Natalie was actually _singing,_ out loud, as she merrily edited video for a piece they had in the ten block.

“Natalie,” said Dan, “I’m frankly a little alarmed. What’s got you warbling like a songbird in here?”

She turned a bright, faintly sinister smile to him, the face of an evil genius in the second act whose plot has begun to pay off. “Dan! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the news.”

“The news?”

“ _Casey and Dana._ They have a _date._ ”

“They what?”

“They have a date!” She turned back to the monitor, grinning. “For Sunday.”

“Oh,” said Dan. His brain seemed to be having difficulty assimilating this information. Casey and Dana had been a hypothetical, a projected possibility, for so long, it had begun to look like it was never going to happen. “When—”

“Last night!”

“He didn’t say anything to me.”

“Dana told me, and she’s a very reliable source.”

“I believe it, I’m just saying, it’s weird that he didn’t say anything to me about it.”

Natalie shot him a look he could describe as pitying. “Dan. Were you talking nonstop about Rebecca?”

“…It is possible that I may have been doing that.”

“No wonder, then. He probably couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “That was probably it.”

“Finally! They’re going to get their shit together.”

“You think so?”

“I _know_ so, Dan. And do you know how I know?”

“The power of optimism?”

“The power of ruthless, tyrannical optimism.”

“I’m not sure that’s how optimism works.”

“It is in my little world.”

“Natalie, no offense, but sometimes your little world is demonstrably somewhat removed from reality.”

She snorted dismissively, turning back to the footage. “You’re just saying that because you’re jealous. When things settle down with Rebecca you’ll realize they’re good together.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’re _jealous,_ ” she said, without looking back at him. “It’s so predictable. You and Casey are enmeshed, which is _not_ healthy, by the way, sure, Dana’s my best friend but she’s not my _only_ friend the way you two are, but what else can you expect from men, I suppose. And so you see this as a disruption of the fragile three-part ecosystem you and Casey and Dana have hammered out over the last decade plus, and you’re naturally threatened by the idea that Casey will spend less time with _you._ So you’re being a sourpuss about it. But you’ll get over that.”

“I’m not—” he said through numb lips. He couldn’t make himself finish the sentence, say the word. It became embarrassingly obvious the longer the pause got.

“Daniel.” Natalie sighed deeply and leaned back in her chair. “You have human emotions. Don’t you have a therapist? Shouldn’t she be helping you with this?”

“I’m _not,_ ” he said more firmly.

“Sure. And you’re also not _dying_ to go run out there and start a fight with Casey over this.”

“I most certainly am not!”

“Good. So _don’t._ ” Natalie’s voice was sharper than usual. He looked at her with some surprise. “Because this could be a really good thing for both of them. They need someone in their lives, and why _shouldn’t_ it be each other? They’ve known each other longer than any of us. They’re clearly _attracted_. If you can find someone you can get along with for fifteen years _and_ you want to bone, you should go for it, you know what I’m saying? There are marriages built on a hell of a lot less than that.”

Dan sat down on the couch. He didn’t entirely mean to, but it seemed like the thing to do.

Natalie kept working on the editing, although he was suspicious that she was mostly just pressing buttons at random.

“How are you and Jeremy?” he asked, for lack of anything better to say.

That got to her. She stopped, and her shoulders slumped. He felt a moment’s panic that she might cry. He could deal with it, but it was never _comfortable._

“We slept together,” she said. “When we thought the station was sold.”

“I see,” he said, although he didn’t.

“In Isaac’s office.”

“Oh, God.”

“I don’t know if I want him back. I don’t know if he wants _me_ back.”

“That’s fair.”

“He said…” She sighed and hit another button. This time Dan was _sure_ it was at random. “He said some _really_ awful, hurtful things to me, over the last couple of months, and I’m still… thinking about that.”

“Like what?”

She snorted. “Comments about how many guys I’ve been with. Talking about how I dressed when we went out. That kind of thing.”

Dan nodded, pursing his lips in thought. “He called you a slut?”

“In so many words. More than once.”

“You want me to kick his ass? I could kick his ass. He’s not a tall man.” His hands were curling into fists.

Natalie laughed. It was a little watery. “Christ, you really need to see Abby more often.”

“It’s already once a week, and you didn’t answer my question.”

“I only kind of want you to kick his ass.”

“Okay, but I’m finding more and more of an urge within myself to kick his ass, here, because—”

“The thing is,” she said, staring beyond the screen, “I didn’t _say_ anything. I just… stood there, and let him insult me like that. I didn’t tell him to go to Hell. I could have. I should have. And instead, I slept with him again.”

“That doesn’t matter. He never had a right to say anything like that to you.”

“I know that. And… He thinks he’s a good guy. He was a better guy before his parents got divorced, and now he’s kind of a shit-show. He’s not dealing with it. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s not a _good_ guy, either. Not like you are. And you’re not even that good, you know that? You’re _so_ lucky Rebecca put up with your shit when you were trying to get her to go out with you in the first place. I would have called the police for a restraining order.”

Dan looked down at his hands. “That’s—occurred to me.”

“Oh, has it?”

“With Abby pointing it out.”

“Well, there you go.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you should see Abby twice a week.”

“It’s not the worst idea.”

“How was the date with Rebecca?”

“It was excellent.” He swung his legs up onto the couch, reclining with his head on the far armrest. “Possibly the best date of my life.”

“There’s one good thing, then.” She spun around in the chair. “Did you sleep together?”

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“You’re no gentleman.”

“You are entirely correct. We did indeed make love.”

She squinted at him. “You go down on her?”

“Natalie!”

“It’s an important question!”

“Did Jeremy go down on _you?_ ” he asked, despite his gut feeling that this was going to take the conversation to a point of no return.

“Of _course,_ ” she said scathingly. “I would _never_ date a guy who wouldn’t. Did you?”

“As a matter of fact, I _did._ ”

“Good!” She paused. “Are you any good at it?”

Dan threw his arm over his face. “Spare me from this conversation,” he said, muffled.

“It matters! Getting _bad_ oral sex is worse than no oral sex at all. You don’t bite, do you? You’re not a biter? And you don’t just try to stick your tongue in her like _that’s_ going to magically make her come?”

“I’ll pay you to stop.”

“Just reassure me you pay attention to the clitoris.”

“Nat,” said Dan. It was easier to deal with her with his eyes closed. “Listen to me carefully. I pay attention to the clitoris. In fact, I _lavish_ attention on the clitoris. Gently, respectfully, yet thoroughly.”

The door swung open. “Hey,” said Casey, “I was looking for Danny. We’ve got this, I don’t remember what it’s called, but some kind of thing to write? Before we go on television in a matter of hours?”

“You have _got_ to stop recycling that joke,” said Dan.

“He’s just telling me about how he lavishes attention on the clitoris,” said Natalie.

“Jesus Christ,” said Casey.

“Tongue attention,” she added.

“She asked!” shouted Dan, still hiding his face. “Make her stop.”

“I would if I could. I _absolutely_ would.”

“But I am beholden to _no man,_ ” muttered Natalie, going back to her editing. “Casey, I told him about Dana, be careful while he freaks out about it a little bit.”

“I’m not going to freak out!” Dan bellowed at the top of his lungs, which might have undermined the purpose of the statement.

“He’s going to freak out a _little_ bit,” Natalie said to Casey in hushed tones. “He’ll be fine.”

“Why would he freak out?” asked Casey, who sounded almost as bewildered as Dan felt.

“Ask him. We already covered it and I’m getting bored of your problems. Plus, I actually do have to edit this footage.”

“You’re a size 2 petite demon,” said Dan.

“Damn right I am, and proud of it.”

“Danny,” said Casey, “please. I’m begging you. Let us leave this room and never speak of this again.”

Dan stood up and stretched to crack his back. “I’ll take that deal.”

Casey nodded and started to walk with him back towards their office. “So here’s the thing. We’ve got a segment on the French Open, and I would _really_ like to use a joke I’ve been working on about the Stade Roland Garros, but I’m not sure whether it’s going to fly with our viewers.”

“Is it a pun on ‘Stade’ versus ‘staid’?”

“I can’t tell from listening to you whether you understand the pun or not.”

“Just don’t.”

“Are you freaking out?” asked Casey. “I didn’t mention it this morning because I didn’t—you seemed pretty excited about Rebecca and I didn’t want to crash that party.”

“I’m not freaking out. Natalie thinks this could unbalance our group dynamic. I think she’s crazy. It’s going to be fine. I’ll be spending more time with Rebecca anyway.”

“Yeah,” said Casey.

 

The thing was, if you dug into it too far, which Casey was _really_ hoping no one did, Casey was having trouble forgetting.

He wanted to forget. He and Danny had never been much for talk like that. _Natalie_ was, _Kim_ was—you had to watch out for the women around the station, because they’d get graphic about sexual encounters at the drop of a hat. Or the drop of an inexplicable pair of panties. But back in the beginning, he’d been newly married, and he didn’t want to talk like that about his _wife,_ and Danny hadn’t seemed to mind skipping that thinly-veiled invitation to one-upmanship that most masculine conversations about women seemed to be.

Sex was, if he was forced to say it, anxiety-inducing. He’d slept with Lisa. Lisa had been his first, and for fifteen years, his only. He’d gotten to know her body, her likes and dislikes, as well as he thought anybody could. They’d gotten a little kinky from time to time—fuzzy handcuffs someone had given Lisa at her bachelorette. A cock ring she’d gotten for him for their second anniversary, when they were still trying to recuperate from the impact of Charlie on their sex life. None of it had really stuck. He’d always liked the simplicity of doing what he could for her with his body, his hands, his mouth. She liked his hands.

And then he’d gotten divorced. He’d started sleeping with Sally. Sally liked very different things than Lisa did. Sally had long, powerful legs, and she liked to straddle him and ride him so that he felt like he barely had anything to do. She liked to cuddle afterwards, and it wasn’t that she didn’t like foreplay, but she made him feel like his attempts were somehow—bush league, he thought, and then couldn’t get the pun to go away.

But Danny. Danny _lavished attention_ on the clitoris. Lavished with his tongue. Casey had _assumed_ Danny was—was—from the way he went through women, from the way his exes tended to show up from time to time for a frolic, an interlude—but it was one thing to suspect and another thing entirely to _hear_ about it.

Danny was lavishing attention on _Rebecca’s_ clitoris, and Casey hadn’t seen Dana naked yet.

Not that it was a competition. It wasn’t. It wasn’t some kind of race. That would be weird, and they weren’t weird. They were just _two normal guys being normal friends,_ and nobody was thinking about anybody’s tongue.

Nobody was—

And besides, they weren’t like that. They’d never been—Danny had even said it, hadn’t he? Danny had said—no, wait. He’d never… he’d never said he wasn’t.

But _they_ weren’t.

It didn’t matter. Danny was going to see Rebecca again soon, and Casey had a date to plan. A _second_ first date to plan, because after the last time, he’d be damned if he went with Café des Artistes and the carriage ride again. No, he’d give her something different. Something she wouldn’t blow off even if she lost her damn mind again.

 

_Casey and Dana went to their friend Ben’s wedding together, because Lisa didn’t know Ben and didn’t really want to go, and finding a sitter would have been expensive anyway. So they went as friends._

_Which was a good idea, a fine idea, except for how Casey kept looking over at Dana in the glowing golden light of the rose garden where the ceremony was being held. It wasn’t like he was thinking. He was just looking._

_Dana was beautiful. Everyone could agree on that. She didn’t date easily or well, but it wasn’t because of how she looked. It seemed like every man she started seeing, sooner or later, expressed his belief that she’d_ want _to quit working at some point. And even though she never kicked them to the curb right then, it inevitably led to a certain cooling that then led to a definitive break-up. It was always the harbinger of the end._

_He’d looked before, sometimes. He thought he’d been pretty subtle about it, all things considered. It was hard not to compare them, Lisa with her rapier-sharp wit that was somehow always being exercised at someone’s expense (more and more often his these days), versus Dana, who would call him an idiot six times a day but never mean it._

_Dana was getting a little teary at the ceremony. Ben’s fiancée was a woman they’d met a few times, and she seemed sweet enough. She was wearing a skinny little white dress, not like the big puffy cake-styled concoction Lisa had worn for their wedding._

_The ceremony dragged on. Casey wondered what kissing Dana would be like. He’d kissed a handful of girls, but for years now it had been Lisa, Lisa, Lisa._

_He thought Dana would probably prefer something subtle and slow—maybe start out just nuzzling—because for all the hard front she put up for the men they worked with, she was a gentle person. Kind._

_Dana kicked him in the ankle and said under her breath, “Eyes front.”_

_He redirected his gaze to the loving couple accordingly._

 

“Danny,” said Casey.

“Yeah?” Dan looked up from his battered copy of Merriam-Webster. He’d been thinking about the word _exigent._ (From Latin, _exigere,_ to demand; requiring immediate aid or action.)

“I’m planning the date.”

“Good for you.” Dan went back to exigent. First known use: 1624.

“You know restaurants, right?”

“I know _some_ restaurants.”

“I want to take Dana somewhere nice. But not trendy. Classic.”

“So like Café des Artistes.”

“Yes!” Casey stabbed a finger at him in excitement, and then subsided back into his chair and sighed. “But… different.”

“Because you were _going_ to take her there.”

“Exactly.”

“And you don’t want to repeat yourself, at the risk of repeating history.”

“Ex _act_ ly.”

“Casey.” Dan put his finger in the book and closed it. He looked up at Casey, who looked, sure enough, a little green around the gills from the stress. “You have known Dana for how long?”

“Seventeen years.”

“You have known this woman for _seventeen years._ You know her pretty well.”

Casey shrugged, glancing away from Dan’s gaze. “Sure.”

“That’s not a question, it’s a _statement._ You know her. You know what she likes. What does she complain about on dates? What does she enjoy? What does it take for her to be comfortable?”

Casey snorted. “She needs to be in the control booth.”

“Okay, _outside_ of that, what’s her best chance of feeling comfortable?”

Dan watched Casey drumming his fingers on the desk slowly; each one sounded like a hammer falling, echoing in their office.

“Comfortable,” said Casey. “Interesting.”

“Did you think she’d want to be _uncomfortable?_ ” Dan asked incredulously.

“No. No, I just…” Casey spun back to look at his computer, but he rested his hands lightly on the edge of the desk, clearly still deep in thought. “I don’t tend to think of _comfortable_ and _romance_ together.”

“Well, there’s half your problem.”

“Really?” Casey glanced back over at him, uncertain.

“Really. If you can’t be comfortable with someone, how can you be yourself? And if they don’t know _you,_ if they don’t like you for yourself, what’s the point?”

“Huh.”

“Mind you, this is coming straight from Abby. I always figured the point of a first date was to fool a woman as completely as possible about my worth as a potential romantic partner.” Dan chuckled, opening the dictionary again. _Exiguous._ Very small in size or amount.

“What?”

Dan blinked, the train of thought already slipping away from him. “Hm?”

“Why would you need to fool women?” asked Casey. He sounded honestly baffled.

Dan sighed. “I’m not Prince Charming. I’ve got some damage, _you_ know that.”

“Yeah, but…” Casey shook his head. “You’d be—they’d have to be crazy not to like you.”

Dan squinted at him in confusion. “Isn’t this where you usually sling me a little shit, I sling some back, and we call it good?”

“Yeah. No. You’re right.” Casey quirked one side of his mouth dubiously. “It’s this Dana thing. It’s getting under my skin.”

“I’m _shocked._ You not handling your first real date in almost two decades with total equanimity? Shocked beyond words, I tell you.”

“Oh, bite me.”

“There’s an extra charge for that,” said Dan and went back to reading.

 _Exile._ From Latin _exul,_ banished person. Well, some things never changed.

 

_It was late. Dan was drunk. Dana could tell he was drunk, because he kept listing to the side; in this case, the side he was listing to was hers._

_She couldn’t blame him. Dallas made_ everyone _want to get drunk. It was seven billion degrees, there were fire ants living in Casey and Lisa’s back yard that everyone at the cook-out had been trying to avoid, and their show’s ratings were wobbly at best. Now it was late, they’d been drinking since mid-afternoon, and the stars were out, for all the good that did. Casey and Lisa were back inside, presumably fighting, and Dan and Dana were the only people left outside, unwilling to concede the necessity of walking back through the inevitable argument._

_The firepit was crackling, stray sparks shooting up into the night sky. It was almost late enough to appreciate the warmth. Almost._

_“Dana,” said Dan. “I hope you know how much I appreciate you.”_

_“Aw, Danny.” She patted his head gently. He’d drifted up against her side, and she’d had her arms spread out to either side of the bench they were sitting on, so she was de facto semi-cuddling him. It was fine. She had also, it was true, imbibed a bit; more than she would have if Casey hadn’t been pulling his bullshit again, flirting with her every time Lisa turned her back. Casey was a cad. Dan, on the other hand, was something of a gentleman. A spaz, sure. But a gentle soul. “I appreciate you, too. You’re a gentle soul.”_

_“A gentle soul?” He sounded confused. She tangled her fingers in his hair. It was very soft. He was still younger than she was, but he was an adult now, at any rate. Twenty-four? Twenty-five? She couldn’t remember._

_“You’ve got a kind heart. You never try to hurt people.” She realized as she said it, with an uncomfortable pang, that she was comparing him to Casey. Casey, who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her and hurt Lisa, for the sake of liking himself a little better. Hell, maybe he even did it_ to _hurt Lisa._

_Dan turned his face into her shoulder. Even slumped over, he was taller than her._

_“Dana,” he said, seriously, and then he sat up. She turned her head to look up at him. “You give people more credit than they deserve, sometimes.”_

_She smiled up at him, his solemn face, and had to blink back a sudden and unexpected rush of tears. “Not always. You really are decent, deep down, no matter how much you try to hide it.”_

_He was staring at her. The embers were crackling, and the fire had gone down enough that the darkness laid thickly on them._

_He drew in a breath, licking his lips so that they glittered in the wavering light, and she realized what he was going to do a split second before he did it._

_He leaned down and kissed her. It was gentle, so gentle, like a butterfly landing on her lips. And for an insane moment she thought,_ Why not? _Dan was a sweet kid who was growing up; she was single, and that didn’t seem likely to change any time soon, despite her mother’s incantation-like demands for information on the statistical likelihood of grandchildren. She could do a lot worse than Dan._

_It could have been him, maybe, except that it wasn’t, and she knew it._

_She pulled back slightly, and he stopped immediately, sitting back away from her. Looking down at her with something close to panic in his eyes._

_“Danny…” She could hear it in her voice._

_He could, too. He retreated to the far end of the bench and turned back to look at the fire._

_“I know,” he said._

_“It’s not—”_

_“It’s all right, Dana,” he said, softly and kind of sadly. Her heart broke for him all over again. And for herself, too: if only she_ had _been able to love him. It would have been so much better, so much easier, than loving Casey. Than waiting to see if she could find someone else she could love as much, who drove her half as crazy or made her laugh like that._

_“In a different world,” she said._

_“We’d still be us.” He scuffed at the dirt with the toe of one shoe. “And we aren’t—I suppose the word I’m looking for is compatible. I wish we were.”_

_“I wish we were, too.”_

_“You won’t—” He stiffened. “Uh, I don’t think we should—”_

_“Tell Casey? God, no.”_

_“He’d be…” Dan sighed._

_“Upset.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Stupidly.”_

_“Completely irrationally.”_

_“And yet indisputably.”_

_Dan laughed. “The nail, you have hit it on the head.”_

_She surreptitiously swiped her thumb across her eye, removing any stray tears that might have been thinking about forming. “That diction is suspiciously European. Have you been reading Poirot again?”_

_“Agatha Christie has some great lines!”_

_“Of course_ you _think so.” She could never figure out how they could transition so seamlessly, subject to subject, but Dan was easy to talk to. Always had been. “You have a soft spot in your heart for octogenarians.”_

_“When they write a damn fine murder mystery? You bet I do.” He smiled—not at her, but out into the firelight—and she knew they were going to be okay._

 

When he got to her door to pick her up, Casey offered Dana his arm.

“Really?” she asked, smirking up at him.

“What’s wrong with a little chivalry?”

“Nothing at all.” She took his arm and let him walk her to the car and open her door for her.

He settled in. “You look amazing, by the way.” She did—her hair pulled up into some kind of style he wanted to call a bun and was fairly sure he should not call a bun, wearing a long, light blue dress that hugged her curves. He loved those curves. He’d fantasized about those curves for _years._

“Casey,” she said, just a hint of a smile playing around her mouth, “are we going to _go?_ ”

“What? Uh. Yes.” He leaned forward to tell the driver.

They started the night at a bustling new hotspot, somewhere trendy in a converted warehouse. He’d ended up asking Kim for recommendations, and she’d frowned for a while before suggesting this one.

It wasn’t bad. They were just slightly out of place: Casey in his jacket one cut more formal than most of the men, Dana in her dress longer than the other women’s. But the drinks were good. They drank and argued good-naturedly about Tiger Woods and his chances at the US Open.

“He’s a slam dunk,” said Dana. “Can _you_ think of a competitor who’s even close to his level right now?”

“He _seems_ like a slam dunk, but come on. How many times do we see upsets? One little tweak to one little tendon and boom, he’s out.”

“He’s a professional, Casey. He knows he needs to take care of _all_ his little tendons. We’re not going to see someone emerge who _could_ take him even if he was slightly off his game.”

“How about Els? How about Jimenez?”

“Not even close, and you know it.”

“Danny’s going to say David Duval has a chance.”

“Dan will say that because David Duval golfs with him, not because David Duval is that good at golf. He feels compelled to.”

“Well, who’s to say he’s not right?”

“Me. I’m to say it. And I am, for the record, completely correct.”

He grinned at her. She smiled back. It felt good; it felt comfortable. _This_ was what he’d wanted, just a chance for the two of them to spend time together.

After drinks they went to dinner at Les Fleurs Aveugles, a new-ish restaurant that was in the style of the old French places of haute cuisine: the furnishings were all red velvet and dark woods, lit candles on the table, with low vases containing huge bundles of vivid scarlet flowers. Dana raised her eyebrows slightly as he held out her chair, but sat gracefully.

The menus were in ostentatious calligraphy script, and were also in French. Dana pursed her lips, looking down at it.

“I don’t know if my high-school French is up to the challenge,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got you.”

“What?”

The waiter appeared. “Bonsoir, m’sieur, m’mselle.”

Casey ordered for them both, in French as well; Dana was watching him with an expression he didn’t know what to make of.

When the waiter left she said, pleasantly but with a dangerous edge, “What did you order?”

“To start with, a sauvignon blanc and escargot. Then we’ll get to the Beaujolais and—”

“Snails? You ordered us _snails?_ ” She leaned forward, dropping her voice as if that were somehow a dirty secret that had to be protected.

“They’re great! You’ll love them.”

She frowned at him with obvious skepticism.

“They’re _great,_ ” he repeated.

“And red wine?”

“A really _good_ red wine,” he said, defensively. “And not with the seafood! I’m not a barbarian!”

“Casey…” She sighed. “All I’m saying is, if I end up with red wine on this dress, you’re paying for the dry-cleaning.”

“Dry-cleaning for a blue dress? Well, I guess it’s either me or Bill Clinton.”

She stared at him, eyes widening, and he held up his hands.

“Sorry. Sorry!”

“You’re trying to _win me over,_ you big lug,” she said, and leaned over to lightly flick his ear. “Do I need to explain to you how that goes?”

“Hey, you knew what I was when you asked me out.”

“That’s true.”

“For that matter, _you_ asked _me_ out. Why did I plan the date, and why am I paying?”

“Because we never got _around_ to our first big date, so this is technically still kind of the date you asked _me_ out on.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“Fine, I’ll take _you_ out next time.”

“Oh, there’s going to be a next time?” He smiled at her, and she rolled her eyes, but she smiled back.

“I imagine so, barring a catastrophe.”

“What kind of catastrophe are we talking? Can I get some kind of insurance for it?”

She laughed. The waiter came back with the wine, which was, Casey thought, an exceptionally good choice—light and tart, refreshing.

Dana thought so, too, giving him the small smile and head-tilt that meant he was forgiven as she sipped from her glass. She left lipstick prints on it; he hadn’t even noticed, but the prints were dark in the low light of the restaurant.

“What color of lipstick are you wearing?” he asked without thinking.

She frowned at him. “You didn’t _notice?_ ”

“No, I was just—appreciating the whole picture. You know, like Impressionism.”

She quirked a smile at him. “Nice save.”

“I thought so.”

“It’s a rosy taupe with a gold shimmer.”

“I’m not entirely sure what that means.”

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t be.”

“You look wonderful.”

“Thank you.” Her smile thawed a bit.

“You always do,” he added, musing out loud. “No matter what you’re wearing, you always look gorgeous, and I usually feel like I shouldn’t tell you that at work. But you do.”

She looked down at her glass, toying with the stem, smiling lopsidedly. “Are you trying to charm me, Casey McCall?”

“I think there’s a connotation with _charm_ that doesn’t quite capture a simple recounting of the facts, which is what that was.”

“Swinging for the fences,” she said. But she was still smiling.

The escargot came, and Dana bravely overcame her (provincial, ridiculous) discomfort with the idea enough to try one.

“Oh,” she said in surprise through a half-full mouth. “It’s not bad!”

“Don’t say that too loudly or the chef will get a big head.”

She rolled her eyes at him while she chewed. She was less thrilled with the entree, which surprised him.

“Really?” he said. “You’re not a fan?”

She poked at the filet mignon gingerly. “It’s just… a lot of meat. And sauce.”

“But it’s _good_ meat and sauce.”

“Spoken like a true Michigan boy,” she muttered. “Casey, have you noticed that I’ve been trying to lose weight for like a _year?_ ”

“What?”

“No. No, of course you haven’t.”

“Wait, is being hungry why you made all of those insane decisions?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, and I am going to enjoy a reasonable portion of this dish.”

“I don’t know why you _want_ to lose weight. You look perfect.”

She gave him a weary smile. “Because I’m in my mid-thirties and still single, and even if I _did_ find a man, as my mother _incessantly_ harps on me to do, I am going to hear very consistently and very loudly that I shouldn’t ‘let myself go.’” She did the finger quotes and everything.

Casey had opened his mouth to comment that in _his_ opinion she’d _found_ a man, but he closed it again, slowly.

“If we got together and I gained weight,” she said, almost gently, “like, not _five_ pounds, Casey, but twenty or thirty or fifty, would you still think I was pretty? Would you still tell me I was perfect?”

“I…” He couldn’t think of a way to answer that.

“Exactly.” She went back to her dish, wielding her fork with a controlled vigor. “And honestly, it’s taking a lot of effort just to _stay_ at this weight, much less _lose_ any. So if you’d asked me what I wanted _before_ you ordered, I would have told you I wanted something light. Like a salad.”

“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly.

“It’s all right. This is good. There’s just a lot of it.”

“Are you… going to want dessert?” he asked cautiously.

She sighed. “Maybe we could split one?”

“That works for me.”

“I don’t understand how you’re _not_ obsessed with your weight. You’re on television, for God’s sake.”

He shrugged. “I play squash. Hoops with Danny on our days off. Go jogging a couple times a week. It helps.”

“I go to the gym every damn day, and I still blow up if I go over my allotment of _carrot sticks,_ ” she said grimly.

“Metabolism?” he ventured, with the sense of navigating a cliff-edge. She stuck out her tongue at him.

They managed to get back to safer waters: “I can’t believe it’s Nicklaus’ last US Open,” he said over a bite of his cassoulet.

“I know!” She waved her fork for emphasis. “He’s such a legend.”

“It’s the end of an era.”

“An era of ridiculous trousers.”

“There’s no arguing that.”

“Although there’s no shortage of other men to carry on the fine tradition of dumb pants.”

“Also true.”

Dessert was small crème brulee split between the two of them, affording him the opportunity to offer her a bite off his spoon, which made her smile mockingly—but which she took.

Afterwards, she said, “What’s next, a carriage ride?”

“No, that would have been too predictable.”

“So what else did you come up with?”

He wrapped his arm loosely around her shoulders, over the thin weight of her dressy coat. She looked up at him, smiling. The faint scent of her perfume rose around him. It was a good moment.

 

Casey watched Dana as she looked around the inside of the glass-blowing studio with interest. It had a low, baking heat—not unpleasant after the cool air outside—and rows of light wood shelves to show off their work, and then the sound of musicians tuning their instruments caught her attention.

“Is this a _concert?_ ”

He nodded.

They made it to the area at the back where the musicians were getting ready, and she chose their seats. An old-fashioned crooner took on the collected works of Frank Sinatra with grace and verve, and by the end, Dana looked happy—relaxing back into her chair, propping her feet up on the cross-bar of the chair ahead of her. (It was empty, thankfully.)

There was a humming tension in him in the cab back to her place. Would she—she might; she probably wouldn’t, but if she _did_ —

“I’m not going to ask you in,” she said quietly as the cab turned onto her street.

“Oh. That’s—uh, that’s fine.”

“I know it sounds ridiculous not to want to _rush_ things, but—this is a change for us. It’s a big change. I want time to adjust.”

“Like putting a fish into a new tank?” he offered.

“Yeah. Like that.” She gave him a half-smile. “I’ll take a good-night kiss, though.”

So he leaned over and kissed her, in the back seat of the cab, and _he_ thought it went fairly well.

 

 _When Casey was planning his first date with Dana the_ first _time, that disastrous November, Dan had swung by Dana’s office._

_“Dana?”_

_“Yeah?” She was hunting through a stack of paper. “Keep it quick, I have a meeting I need to bring this records analysis to.”_

_“I just wanted to make sure we were still on the same page.”_

_“I’m sure we are, Dan.”_

_“About something that happened a long time ago.”_

_“You’re still wrong about the Cubs.”_

_“Not that.”_

_“Then what?” she asked in exasperation, looking up at him. He stared back at her, and he could see the minute she realized what he was talking about. Her eyes widened. “Good gravy, Dan, of_ course _I’m not going to tell him about that!”_

_“I wanted to make sure.”_

_“It was ten seconds, five years ago, and we both immediately agreed he never needed to know about it.”_

_“That characterization of events is accurate.” He spread his arms to the sides in an all-encompassing gesture. “I simply wanted to ensure that we remained in agreement.”_

_She paused, propping her hip on the desk to look at him more closely. “You still think he’d be mad?”_

_Dan shrugged uncomfortably, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Don’t you?”_

_She pressed her lips together in thought. “Yeah, maybe.”_

_“Especially now.”_

_“You’re not wrong.”_

_“Of course I’m not_ wrong. _” Danny exhaled explosively. “Dana, I think between the two of us we know him better than anyone, and I am including Lisa in that assessment—”_

_“Fair enough—”_

_“—and I don’t want him to think I was trying to, to…”_

_“Horn in?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“You realize he was married at the time.”_

_“I’m not saying it’s rational, I’m saying he’d_ feel _that way.”_

_“He was married for ten years to one of my best friends.”_

_“You only stayed friends with Lisa because of Casey.”_

_“That’s not… completely true.”_

_“How many times have you seen her since the divorce?”_

_“That’s different.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because we all had to… They made us pick sides.”_

_“But you picked Casey’s.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Without even thinking about it.”_

_“Excuse you, I had to think. I had to—they put us all through a lot!”_

_“But when push came to shove you picked Casey. Have you seen her, one-on-one, just to hang out, since the divorce?”_

_Dana sighed heavily, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “No. We talked on the phone a couple of times. That was it.”_

_“So what I’m saying is, he’s very important to you, and he knows it. He’s always known it. And he needs to believe it.”_

_“You think if he finds out you and I kissed, once, while he was still married, he won’t believe that he’s important to me anymore? You do realize I was_ engaged _to someone else in the meantime, right?”_

_“That’s different,” said Dan quietly. “That wasn’t me.”_

_She didn’t have a ready response to that. They looked at each other across her office._

_“Dan,” she said, “do you feel_ guilty _for that kiss?”_

_He looked away, moving automatically, walking over to the window and looking out. “I don’t know what you mean.”_

_“I mean you manage to feel guilty about more things than anyone else I’ve ever known,” she said. “Especially about Casey.”_

_“That’s not true.”_

_“Do you feel responsible for his divorce?”_

_“I don’t—what—why would I—”_

_“You were mic’d when he told you about Conan’s show.”_

_He shook his head. He wasn’t sure what he was protesting._

_“You told him he was an idiot for staying with us in Dallas. You asked if that was the beginning of the end with Lisa.”_

_“I was… It wasn’t…”_

_“Do you, Danny?”_

_He rested his forehead against the glass. “Yes.”_

_“There you go. You feel responsible, you feel guilty, but here’s the thing, Dan. He made those decisions. He made every single choice. He painted himself into his own corner, as a grown man, and he’s got to live with that. You can’t protect him from every consequence of every dumb thing he’s done. It’s not even your job to try. Or mine.”_

_Dan couldn’t say anything. Outside there was a thick, sleety rain falling. The window was a little bit clammy._

_“I won’t tell him.” Her voice was like steel. “But not because I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He’s spent more than enough time hurting everyone else’s. He needs to grow up.”_

_Dan closed his eyes._

_“I have to get to this meeting,” she said. “Close the door when you leave.”_

_The next day was the biker outfit and the bachelorette party, and then the dating plan, and Dan wondered if that was his fault, too; if he’d reminded her of what a pain in the ass Casey could be. If maybe she was trying to_ make _him grow up._

“Casey,” said Danny when Casey walked in the next morning. There was a note of warning in his voice, which, as it turned out, was rendered totally superfluous by Natalie’s physical presence. She was sitting in Casey’s desk chair, swinging her feet.

“Natalie?” asked Casey.

She sprang to her feet, grabbed his arm, and said, “ _Finally_ you get here. Come on. We need to talk.”

Casey shot a panicky look over his shoulder as she dragged him away, but Danny just put his hands up helplessly.

She towed him to the editing room and then closed the door with a bang. “Casey,” she said, rounding on him, “you have _got_ to do better!”

“What?”

“That date! If that’s what you call a date!”

“Wait, what? What do you mean?”

“You take her for drinks somewhere trendy she doesn’t know or like, you take her to dinner at a French restaurant when you _know_ she likes Italian better if you’re _going_ to go Continental, and you _order dinner for her without asking?_ What is your _damage?_ ”

“I thought we had a good time!”

“And kissing! Casey! You can’t just try to eat someone’s face. Was that how you kissed Lisa? God, I’m not surprised Sally let you get away with it. You’re pretty, and pretty men can get away with _murder_ when it comes to being bad in bed.”

“ _What?_ ”

“ _Please_ tell me you go down on women!”

“NATALIE!”

She shook her head vigorously. “Okay. Come on. You need a coach here, buddy. You are _screwing this up._ Is that what you want? Do you _want_ to screw this up?”

He grabbed the chair from the desk and sat down shakily. “No.”

“Then you’re going to _listen to me._ ”

 

When Casey came back from being waylaid by Natalie, he was white as a ghost and he had a yellow legal pad covered in indecipherable scrawls.

“Did she make you take _notes?_ ” Dan asked, appalled.

Casey scrubbed his hand across his face. “God help me, she did.”

“I was going to ask how it went.”

_“I thought it went well!”_

“Evidently Natalie had some suggestions.”

“Natalie is clinically deranged.” Casey dropped the legal pad onto his desk and put his head in his hands. “This was not supposed to be this complicated.”

“To be fair, you _have_ met Natalie before. You had to know she’d be unable to resist the urge to meddle.”

“I don’t think she even contemplated resisting it. I think she thought to herself, ‘I should meddle, that’s a great idea,’ and then ran with it.”

“But you’re going out again, though?” said Dan with determined good cheer. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“We are, but now I’m starting to wonder.”

“Dare I ask what the complaints were?”

“I’m a walking cliché.”

“She had to know that going in.”

“That’s what I said!”

“That’s not so bad, though. You can come back from that.”

“She said I get away with being bad at kissing because I’m pretty. She called me pretty.”

Dan squinted in pain. “You’re… you _are_ objectively good-looking, though. I mean, that’s part of why you were hired to be on television. So she’s not… _wrong,_ exactly?”

“PRETTY.”

“I can understand being taken aback by the word she chose, but that’s really a compliment, when you get down to it.”

“ _Bad at kissing._ Apparently there was too much—I think she used the word ‘slobber.’” He checked his notes. “Yep. Slobber. I was being passionate!”

“Oh, man.”

“I don’t know how she expects _sleeping_ together to go if this is how she reacts to kissing! Telling Natalie about all of my shortcomings when Natalie has the mind and the mouth of a sailor who hasn’t seen _land_ in months. I don’t know how I’m supposed to—to perform, knowing that _Natalie_ is going to hear about it. Oh, God. What if she _doesn’t_ want to sleep with me? Ever? What if the kissing was that bad?”

“Maybe Natalie will keep her bedroom thoughts to herself,” said Dan without much hope.

“ _She asked me if I eat them out, Danny!”_

Dan flinched. “Maybe not so loud, there, buddy.”

Casey pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand _why_ she thinks I’m so hopeless. So I ordered for Dana! So what! I speak French, it was a French restaurant, it seemed like the thing to do.”

Dan bit back the urge to offer unhelpfully that it was most certainly _not_ the thing to do with Dana and anybody with even a passing acquaintance with her would know it.

Casey stared at him. “You _agree_ with her?”

So much for not saying it with words. Dan sighed. “Yeah.”

“But…” Casey sat back. Dan’s heart raced; he waited to see if there was going to be an eruption of anger, but instead, Casey slowly rotated his hands so they were palms-up on the desk, and looked down at them blankly. “Huh. I’ll be damned.”

“Think about it, Casey. Does Dana _ever_ like having you tell her what to do?”

“I can’t say that she does.”

“There you go.”

“I was under the impression our first kiss went well. _I_ said it was magical. I said I rocked her world. She agreed.”

“Did you phrase it like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“How, exactly, was she going to disagree, if you put it like that? Especially if she still liked you, despite having an imperfect kiss, and wanted to give things another chance. She wasn’t going to be able to critique your style right there and then.”

“I… Maybe.”

Dan sighed. “Yeah. You have to elicit _concrete_ feedback, Casey. You can do it as you go along. You can try and make it sexy, like,” he dropped his voice, “‘show me what you like,’ ‘how do you like it,’ or whatever.”

Casey’s face flushed red. “Good Lord, Danny.”

“And always start small and work your way up. Don’t go straight to open-mouthed kissing. And for the love of all that’s holy, don’t _ever_ open your mouth _as wide as it goes._ That’s too much. That’s going to take you into slobber territory.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being punished for something terrible I must have done in a past life.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dan said breezily, “you’ve done plenty of terrible things in _this_ life.”

Casey, clearly struggling not to smile, threw a pencil at him. He ducked, laughing.

“I’m trying here,” said Casey.

“And Dana knows that. I think it’s going to be fine, as long as you keep an open mind.”

“I need to keep an open mind?”

“About, you know, changing your approach.”

“To kissing?”

“Or whatever. Just being willing to change when things aren’t working for you. Flexibility.”

“Flexibility.”

Dan nodded. “Adaptation.”

“Changing with the times.”

“Changing with your changing understanding of the situation. Be versatile. Resilient. Malleable, even. This isn’t a bad time to be malleable.”

“Malleable?”

“Pliable. Not entirely unlike putty in Dana’s hands. If you’re _going_ to make a good faith effort here, there’s going to be some meeting in the middle, right? She’s going to have to be less insane than she has at times been in the past and you’re going to have to work harder at putting yourself in her shoes.”

“Her shoes have higher heels than I think I could manage.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, you could learn. I am confident in your adaptability.”

“My tractability.”

“Well, now you’re verging perilously close to spinelessness, which I would certainly _not_ encourage.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“You have to give _some,_ but you can’t give too _much_ or else you can’t keep it up.”

Casey made a funny face.

“Not in that sense.”

“Okay.”

“In the sense that you want there to be mutual respect.”

“I see.”

“Good!” said Dan encouragingly.

Casey kept staring into the distance after that for a long, long time.

 

_Dan met Natalie in New York._

_Dana had said something about her back when they were still in Dallas, talking about the contracts. The three of them sat around the table in Dana’s kitchen, under the glare of her hanging light fixture, looking through the pages for some kind of divine sign as to whether they should take the jobs or not._

_“I’d have an assistant,” said Dana longingly._

_“A good one, or a bad one?” asked Dan, who knew a thing or two about bad assistants, having briefly been one himself._

_“Oh, a good one. I met her at the interview. They took me by her office—she’s working on some two-bit nonsense right now. But she’s sharp, I can tell.”_

_And that was all he knew about her when they arrived in Manhattan. He met her when he was settling into his office, starting to unroll posters and unpack books._

_She stuck her head through the door. “Hi!”_

_“Hi,” he said pleasantly, continuing to put his small selection of books on the shelf out of alphabetical order. It would screw with Casey enormously and he enjoyed that very much._

_“I’m Natalie Hurley.”_

_“I’m Dan Rydell.”_

_“I’m aware of that.”_

_“Oh, good. I’m never sure whether I’m actually famous or not.”_

_“I’d say you’re reasonably well-known among sports fans. Not sure whether you’d count as a celebrity outside of that. Definitely not A-list, at any rate.”_

_“Thank you very much.”_

_“I’m going to be the senior associate producer.”_

_“So we’ll be working together?”_

_“Quite a bit, I’d say.”_

_He nodded slowly, examining her more carefully. “As long as you understand my creative process, I think we’ll get along just fine. Firstly, it’s very important that I have a peaceful, meditative writing space. Secondly, I need fresh spring water—”_

_“First rundown’s at noon. Get your ass to the conference room on time or I’ll personally break your kneecaps with that commemorative bat you’ve got there.”_

_“Nice to meet you too!” he shouted after her._

_It set the tone, as it turned out. Natalie brooked no shit—not from him, and not from anyone else._

_(Except when Jeremy came along, and then she brooked an unprecedented amount of shit.)_

_Dan thought, exactly four times, about asking her out. The first time, she was browbeating Casey into dropping a joke that wasn’t funny at all from the profile on Arthur Bermann during their first six o’clock rundown. The second time, she was standing in the bullpen chugging a cold black coffee at ten p.m. before their second show. The third time, it was a month and a half later and they’d all gone out to a bar they’d liked before they got so comfortable with Anthony’s, a place called Capitols that served shots themed by states, and she’d had several Wisconsins and was laughing too hard to finish telling him a dirty story about the cheer captain at her high school, which he gathered had been a small school in a very small town._

_That time was far more serious than the times before. She wasn’t seeing anybody. She wasn’t Jewish, but that hadn’t stopped him before and needn’t stop him now. And by now he knew that she was cruelly funny and wickedly smart. Natalie was a little deranged, true, but she was razor-sharp and she could dish it out as well as take it. They worked together, but sometimes that risk made the reward all the sweeter._

_He was twenty-six then. She was twenty-three, fresh out of college. She had a personality that seemed far too big for her small frame. She was very attractive; he could picture it, and he thought she’d probably like it a little wild and crazy, a little rough, probably scratch him, leave marks on his back—_

_“Dan!” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, so loudly he flinched back. “You’re picturing me naked. Stop. You’re not my type.”_

_“What?” he asked, indignant. “I was—I was_ not, _I—”_

_“It’s okay. I’m hot. But you’re not getting any of this sugar, so move on to greener pastures.”_

_“That’s not even how the metaphor goes!”_

_“Tough titties.”_

_“You’re a maniac,” he said wonderingly. “A complete and total lunatic.”_

_“Yes, and also, in a sense, your boss, so watch your tone with me.”_

_“You are in no sense whatsoever my boss.”_

_“Dana is your boss, I am Dana’s right-hand woman, therefore I act in a certain sense as your boss.”_

_“That is so wrong! You’re thoroughly wrong.”_

_She leaned back, smirking, and downed another Wisconsin. “Bite me, Danny boy, the pipes are calling.”_

_“Do you even know that song?”_

_“I said the pipes are calling. You should listen to them.”_

_A year or so later they were working late on a special from London, coming in live, and he saw her through a glass door. She yawned. She even put her hand up to cover her mouth, like she’d surely been raised. A good girl from a small town, who’d made a tremendous effort to reinvent herself completely in order to chase her dreams._

_He could respect that. Becoming someone new wasn’t easy. He’d been trying for years._

_She put her hand down, done yawning, and gave herself a little shake before she leaned back to work again._

_He thought,_ Maybe I should— _and then she looked up, saw him through the glass, and flipped him off. “Get back to work, you slacker!”_

_He let it go, wistfully._

 

Dana set the next date with Casey for _the next Sunday,_ which was unconscionable and meant that everyone spent the week suffering through Casey’s ponderous mooning. Dana, meanwhile, seemed more private than ever—buttoned up, harder to read. Possibly as a result of Natalie’s post-game with Casey.

Meanwhile, Dan and Rebecca were seeing each other almost every night. That Saturday, he said, “Why don’t we go to your place?”

She sighed into the phone. “I’m still unpacking. Everything’s a mess.”

“I’ll help.”

“Danny—”

“I mean it! I’m a lean, mean, cleaning machine. I’ll unpack, I’ll organize. You’ll be amazed at how much work I can do.”

There was a smile in her voice. “I don’t want to bore you.”

“I won’t get bored. Especially if I can help you unpack any and all things that are satin or perhaps edged in lace.”

 _“Danny,”_ she said, but she was laughing, which meant he’d won.

Casey had wandered back into their office at some point during that conversation, and he raised a forbidding eyebrow at Dan. Dan ignored him to say, “Should I bring wine?”

“No, but could you bring some lemonade? It’s so dusty, I always get thirsty.”

“Lemonade it shall be.”

After they hung up, Dan sprawled out on the couch.

“Sounds like a good time,” said Casey.

“It should be.”

“Helping her move?”

“Helping her get moved in. We’re just putting stuff away at this point.”

Casey sighed. “Nice. Sounds uncomplicated.”

“Well, it’s _Rebecca,_ so everything’s complicated. But it’s not bad.”

“You discussed when to have the wedding yet?” asked Casey. He sounded a little off. Dan glanced up at his face, but he couldn’t tell what Casey was thinking.

“We’re taking it as it comes.”

“As it comes.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not a bad way to take it.”

“I thought so.”

“I’m not sure anything _is_ coming with Dana.” His mouth twisted. “ _I’m_ certainly not.”

“Hey, come on,” Dan chided him. “You’ve got another date tomorrow. Just over twenty-four hours.”

“Yeah, which she planned.”

“Has she told you what it is yet?”

“No, she just keeps telling me I’ll love it.”

“And you’re not reassured.”

“Strangely, no, I am not reassured by ignorance.”

“Even your own?”

“Even my own.”

“I’ve heard that it’s bliss.”

Casey huffed. “Then bliss is overrated.”

“You’re nervous?”

“What? No. I’m not nervous. Why would I be nervous?”

Dan shrugged. “I dunno, it’s your second date with the woman you’ve been trying to get with for like two years now, after the first date didn’t go all that well. I can’t imagine why you’d be nervous.”

“Are you trying to make me _more_ nervous?”

“No, I just want you to admit that you _are_ nervous so you don’t get all… stoic about it and end up saying something that makes you sound like a jerk just to try and prove that you’re not.”

“Fine.” Casey threw his hands in the air. “I’m nervous. I’m nervous! And I think I have every right to be. It’s entirely justifiable nervousness.”

“I agree completely.”

“She won’t even tell me where we’re going.”

“I would be nervous as well.”

“Meanwhile…” Casey sighed. “ _You’re_ going off to have a perfectly normal, enjoyable evening at Rebecca’s, helping with domestic tasks.”

“Indeed I am.”

“I would imagine you’re planning on getting horizontal.”

“Possibly, although not necessarily. Sometimes it’s good to mix things up.” Dan winked at Casey. “Try getting vertical instead.”

Casey tilted his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “I regret mentioning it already.”

“Hey, you’re the one with a Midwestern bug up your ass.”

“I do not—!”

“There’s no shame in being a bit of a prude, Casey.”

“I am _not!”_

“I know you aren’t comfortable with human sexuality—”

“I’m going to murder you—”

“—and this has been a growth experience for you—”

“—in your _sleep,_ I’m going to find you and murder you—”

“—but perhaps Natalie’s emphasis on sexual communication and confronting your own discomfort with it isn’t a _bad_ thing, you know?”

“I don’t have any discomfort!”

“Casey.” Dan gave him a look full of disbelief. “Say the word ‘sex.’”

“I will not.”

“And why not?”

“Because there’s no reason to and I have nothing to prove to you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“I’m perfectly capable of talking about sexual intercourse.”

“ _Sexual intercourse._ ”

“When the conversation calls for it.”

“And you’re under the impression that calling it ‘sexual intercourse’ is acceptable?”

“That _is_ one of the more socially acceptable ways to describe it.”

“Socially acceptable in a room full of doctors.”

“What doctors do _you_ know?” Casey grumbled.

“Casey. Casey, Casey, Casey. You have hang-ups, my friend, and you need to address those. Not all at once! You don’t have to magically get over whatever’s wired funny in your head. You can’t, actually, if you could I would have ordered _that_ package from Abby instead of the grindingly slow and excruciatingly painful option. But you have to at least admit that there’s a _there_ there, and that Dana may be in a unique position to appreciate that and be patient with you.”

“I don’t need anyone to be _patient_ with me! How has everyone just decided that I’m a lousy lover?”

“You might be a perfectly adequate sexual partner, for all I know. I’m saying you’re not a great _communicator._ ”

“I _write for a living!_ ”

“And you do it quite well.”

“Thank you!”

“But that’s not the same thing.”

“The same thing as what?”

“Communicating. Sexually.”

“I’m going to throw myself at those windows and see if any of them give. No, no, don’t stop talking, I’m sure it’s perfectly fascinating.”

Dan held up his hands. “I’m done, I’m done. I’ve said my piece.”

“You’ve said _several_ pieces. You should write for Carrie Bradshaw.”

“Was that a _pop culture_ reference? From _you?_ ”

“I keep up to date!”

“No, really, who told you about Sex and the City?”

Casey sighed. “Elliott.”

Dan raised his eyebrows, rocking back with his chair. “For real?”

“Very real. He says I’m a Charlotte.”

Dan laughed uproariously. “He’s so right!”

“Shut up.”

“Have you _watched_ the show?”

“No.”

“Try a couple of episodes. See how the single career ladies are talking about sex these days. I mean, the City in Sex and the City _is_ the very same one in which we currently reside.”

“I’m going to get coffee, and when I come back, you’ll be done telling me to watch some show about _shoes._ ”

“It’s about relationships, but you could use better shoes!” Dan called after him as he left. “Get me a latte!”

Casey got him a latte.

 

Rebecca smiled as she opened the door to her apartment. “Come in.”

“Oh, good, I was hoping you’d say that. My alternative was to stand in your hallway for a while, and I thought your neighbors might get nervous.” Dan kicked off his shoes. “Show me these boxes that need unpacking.”

She gestured at the far wall; there were many boxes. More boxes than Dan had anticipated.

“Wow.” He whistled between his teeth. “Okay, glad I brought the _big_ lemonade.”

“I know.” Rebecca made a face. She had her hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail. It was still strange that she was blonde, but he was getting used to it. “It’s _so_ dusty. Most of my stuff was in storage while I was in California.”

“I’m understanding why you wanted to spend time at my place.”

“Your place has the necessities of life _not_ boxed up in cardboard and wrapped in packing materials.”

“That it does. It’s one of the many complimentary things that can be said about my condo.”

“Danny…”

“I’m _not_ going to start asking you to move in. This is what, a six-month lease?”

“Yes.”

“Then there you go. We have six months to decide about that.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“I’m just saying, your apartment is kind of terrible and my condo is great.”

“Is this going to turn into you talking smack about my apartment every time you’re here?”

“No, no. I’d never do that. Whoa!” He faked surprise, throwing his hands up in the air. “How big was that rat? Or was it just a swarm of roaches?”

She laughed. “Come on, I’ll get you a glass of lemonade.”

“Thanks. I’ll get started—you want me to open any of the boxes in particular, or just start and surf the adventure?”

“Pick at random,” she called, glasses clinking in the kitchen as he rolled up his sleeves and started in with his pocket knife.

“At random? I could find anything!”

Her laughter carried. “Are you afraid you’ll find vibrators and boxes of tampons? Because I already unpacked those.”

“Hey!” he called back, but he was laughing, too.

They found plenty of things, separating them into piles for the different rooms, Rebecca whisking them away to their eventual destinations. Dishware. Area rugs. Box after box of books—she already had shelves up in the living room, light wood, mostly bare. He smiled, watching her organize them carefully by subject. Philosophy occupied several shelves; there were a handful of poets in the original Spanish she lovingly arranged next to Philosophy.

“Poetry next to Philosophy? Is that alphabetical?”

She shook her head, switching two books. “They’re the same subject, tackled different ways.”

And that was what he loved about her, right there: the way she saw the world. He felt like he could learn from her forever.

They chatted while they worked, mostly Dan talking about Sports Night with Rebecca interspersing questions. There was more than enough material there. He was updating her on the situation with Casey and Dana when she said, “I hope this doesn’t sound too judgmental, but they sound a little crazy.”

“About each other? They always have been.”

“And they think this is going to _work?_ ”

He looked up at her—she had a box of CDs out and was sliding them into place in the entertainment center, one at a time. “You don’t think it will?”

“I could be wrong.” She bit her lip.

“But?”

“But if it was _going_ to work out with them—wouldn’t you think it _would_ have by now?”

“Not necessarily,” he said, feeling somehow defensive. “Casey was married for a long time. It took him a while to get over the divorce.”

“But that whole time, he flirted with Dana.”

“Not continuously. On and off. When things were rough with Lisa.”

“And she still wants to date him?”

“She must. She’s got their date for tomorrow night planned.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I don’t know. Even when things were—when it was bad with Steve, I still didn’t flirt with other people.”

“With one very notable exception,” said Dan, gesturing at himself.

“We were separated. And I didn’t flirt with you! You flirted with me. You flirted so _much_ with me that I was ultimately left with no choice but to flirt back.” She smiled at him to take the sting out of it.

“You speak the truth.”

“And if I were Dana, I don’t think I’d ever really feel—after that, I don’t know if I’d believe that Casey wanted me for _me._ ”

“Huh,” said Dan. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Even after all the stuff with Gordon?”

“Yeah, but was that really about Dana?”

“I don’t see who else it _could_ have been about.”

“It could have been about _Casey._ Thinking he had, I don’t know, had Dana waiting in the wings for him if he ever got around to her.”

“Oh, wow,” said Dan, sitting back on his heels to stare at her. “You think she feels like that?”

Rebecca shrugged, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. The room was uncomfortably warm; her AC wasn’t quite up to the challenge, even though he could hear it running distantly. “Maybe. They’re _your_ friends, Danny, I don’t know them that well.”

“But he spent so _long_ going after her.”

“Did you think they were going to work back when Casey asked her out?”

Dan planted his hands on his thighs and thought about it.

“I… hoped,” he finally said.

She nodded. “There you go. Sometimes that’s all you have to work with.”

 

_The first time Dan slept with Rebecca, it was the night she invited him to the hotel room at the Four Seasons, and he thought that he had probably never been rewarded so handsomely for fucking up on air before._

_It was good. He’d slept with more than his fair share of women, strictly speaking, and he knew it was good, because he paid attention. He was careful; he was kind; he made sure she came before he did, and then again after._

_She seemed enthusiastic, too. There were women who thought asking for what they wanted made them sluts—he tried to put their minds at ease about that—but Rebecca had no trouble whispering in his ear what she wanted, and he did his best to give it to her. She looked glorious, legs wrapped around his waist, gripping the headboard with white-knuckled hands while straining towards her second orgasm, but it was the way he felt about_ her _, how good it was to press skin to skin, the feelings bubbling in his brain that made it incredible._

_He put his arm around her afterwards and they lay together, tangled and sweaty on the wrecked satin sheets, and he felt like he’d come home._

_Part of him wanted to get up and start running and never come back. Part of him wanted to stay there forever._

_In the end, he compromised and left in the morning, and she smiled sweetly at him and kissed him on his way out._

 

“Dana,” said Casey, “you’re a genius.”

She smiled, pleased and not bothering to hide it. “I know.”

“I mean, I’m not sure I’m _technologically advanced_ enough for this place.”

“It’s glow in the dark mini-golf, Casey. What part’s intimidating you, the glowing?”

“I will admit that the glow is pretty intense.”

She laughed. “You can say if you’re worried I’m going to beat you.”

“Hey!” He shook a finger at her. “I’ll have you know I’m a highly skilled player of mini-golf.”

“Any games played in your office with Danny don’t count.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Well, then, I’m a _semi-_ skilled player of mini-golf.”

“Come on, Casey!” she yelled, on her way in. “You have an appointment for me to kick your ass!”

 

Three rounds later—“best two out of three?” with a smirk had gotten to him, but he had, alas, lost the final round to her—they were sitting in a vegetarian restaurant near Dana’s condo.

“They’re the best place around here for food that is both made out of vegetables and _good,_ ” she explained earnestly.

He looked askance at the menu, then up at her, then back at the menu. “If you say so.”

“I _do._ Come on, try something. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

He bravely attempted something that pretended to be a burger. It wasn’t. He thought about Danny’s comments, being _malleable,_ and smiled agreeably through the dinner instead of complaining about rabbit food. Dana seemed relieved.

 _God,_ he thought, _am I usually an asshole at these things?_

“Danny’s helping Rebecca move in,” he said casually.

“Where’s she living?”

“Down on the Lower East Side, I think.”

“So not too far away from he’s at.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s always good to have a hand with moving.”

“I suppose.”

She frowned at him in concern. “Do you think Danny’s going to be all right?”

“You mean if things don’t go well?”

“Yeah.”

Casey shrugged. “He did all right last time.”

“Casey, he was a _mess_ last time.”

“Yeah, but he got over it.”

“Did he, though?”

“He got over it _eventually,_ ” Casey clarified. “And he’s got Abby now, anyway.” Danny’s breakdown, although quite possibly precipitated by therapy, also seemed to be getting _better_ with therapy. The staff had collectively agreed to give Abby simultaneous blame and credit.

She nodded, taking a sip of water. “He does. It’s just a lot, happening all at once.”

“With the show?”

“And us.” She gestured back and forth between the two of them with her fork. “Natalie thinks he’s going to freak out.”

“I would say he’s been doing an admirable job of not freaking out.”

“Really?”

“Have _you_ noticed him freaking out?”

“No, but you spend more time with him than I do.”

“And I’m rarely lecturing him.”

“I do not _lecture!_ ”

“Dana. You lecture. You lecture like a middle school math teacher. Like you’re always afraid we’re about to miss the point, so you have to repeat it several times in several different ways to protect us from our own ignorance and sloth.”

“If you were more competent, I wouldn’t _have_ to lecture.”

“So you admit you lecture.”

“I admit nothing,” she said, shooting a sultry glare at him. It wasn’t a natural combination, but it worked for her.

Afterwards they got drinks at a bar even closer to Dana’s condo, just a couple of blocks away. It was small and dark and comfortable. Casey knew Dana liked it—they’d been a couple of times before—and the drinks were reasonably priced, for the neighborhood.

“I dunno, Casey, I think he’s going to be up against Orson Chapin, and that’s going to be tough.”

“Chapin’s out for knee surgery.”

“I know _that,_ but he’s already in rehab for it. He’ll be playing again by the pre-season, and that’s going to make it a _lot_ harder for the Jags to take them.”

“You’re not wrong.” He took a sip of his martini. “Assuming Chapin’s back in. I’m not convinced he will be.”

“Are you going to eat the olive?”

“Do I ever?” He rolled his eyes and handed the little toothpick to her. She smiled at him as she slid it off the toothpick.

“Hey,” she said, “after this, come back to my place.”

He sat up straight. “Really?”

“Really.”

“For coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Oh,” he said. He sat up, if possible, straighter.

Dana burst out laughing. “You can calm down!”

“I’m perfectly calm!”

“Yeah, you _look_ calm,” she murmured, and ate the olive. Her hair was up. She was wearing a casual little black dress. He thought it was casual. Danny would know. Danny knew these things, and it was inconvenient not to be able to ask him about it.

 

Casey didn’t know what to do with his hands. He didn’t know what to do with his _coat._ He took it off once they walked into Dana’s apartment and then looked around stupidly for something to do with it.

“I’ll take that,” said Dana, and took it from his nerveless fingers. She hung it in a tiny closet.

He’d been at her place before, pleasant nights spent drinking and arguing with Dana and Danny and their friends, although not often. So he couldn’t really comment on its merits or discuss how it had changed.

“Casey,” said Dana, standing in front of him.

“Yes?”

“You should probably kiss me,” she said, with a hint of a smile.

He would have preferred coffee first, if only to buy time, but she was right, wasn’t she? She was right. He leaned down, took her in his arms, and kissed her.

 _Not like a washing machine,_ he thought, per Natalie’s notes. Dana kissed him back, and he found his rigid shoulders starting to relax. She ran her hands up and down over his arms.

She drew away and said, “Did you want a nightcap?”

“Wouldn’t mind one.”

She poured them each a glass of wine. He sat next to her on the couch to drink. She had kicked off her shoes, and she tucked her feet up under her. She looked more like _his_ Dana than she had at their last date. It should have made it easier, but it didn’t. Somehow, date-Dana was easier to _treat_ like a date than regular-Dana. And there were years and years of reflexes, all those times he _wanted_ to look and couldn’t, wanted to lean into her and couldn’t.

But she was doing some of the heavy lifting for him. She refilled his glass. She asked about Charlie, got him talking, until he’d almost forgotten his nerves.

Then she reached over, took the glass out of his hand, set it on the coffee table, and kissed him.

He opened his mouth in surprise as much as anything. Somehow he’d never pictured _her_ taking the lead, but here she was: kissing him, moving to straddle his lap. And by the time she pulled back and said, “Bedroom?” in a terrible imitation of her usual matter-of-fact way, he was panting and achingly hard.

“Yeah,” he said. It came out as a rasp. He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

There was the inevitable awkwardness of undressing—he remembered to take off his socks—and she reached for the light as they got into bed.

“Don’t,” he said without thinking. She raised her eyebrows. She looked different, this close. She was still wearing her makeup. “I want to see you.”

She blushed, red and blotchy from her cheeks to her chest. He lowered his head and kissed one breast, and then the other, running his hands along her thighs, up over her ass, hips, curling around her shoulders. He wanted to touch her _everywhere._

And he managed it, more or less. She was a little uncomfortable when he moved to go down on her, he could tell, but after a couple of minutes the tension in her legs relaxed and then became a different kind of tension. When she came, he could feel it, and a wave of relief mingled with desire washed over him.

She put the condom on him, which meant that she was touching him, her hands on his cock. He took a deep breath and mentally recited all the outfielders he could think of.

And then he was sinking into her. Missionary position, which—was he boring? He hoped not. But he went nice and slow, stroke after stroke, pulling almost all the way out before thrusting back in, and after a bit of that she was digging her nails into the meat of his ass, pulling him forward to meet her. He tried not to come, and finally she gasped and shook and broke, and he came immediately inside her, his pulse thundering in his ears.

She got up to use the bathroom right after. When she came back she laid down next to him and he looked at her. Just let himself look at her, naked, her breasts and the curve of her stomach, the dimples on her thighs.

“You’re so beautiful.” He cupped her hip in his hand. She smiled at him. He tried to read it, figure out what she was thinking, but he couldn’t tell.

“You’re not so bad yourself.”

He started to doze off quickly, the anxiety of the evening turning into satisfaction, making him sleepy. It had been done, and it hadn’t been bad. He’d seen Dana naked, he’d _touched_ Dana naked, and the world hadn’t ended. Sex seventeen years in the making had, at long last, been had.

“Did you want to stay?” asked Dana, softly enough that if he _had_ been asleep she wouldn’t have woken him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She got up and went to take a shower. He woke up when she climbed back into bed. Her face was bare of makeup, he saw before she turned out the light, and it was familiar and alien at once.

 

“Casey,” she said, touching his shoulder.

“Mmm?” He jerked. “What?”

“I’m going to the gym.”

“Okay.”

“When do you want me to set the alarm for? You need to go home before work, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’ve got a spare key. You can lock up when you leave.”

And then she was gone. He couldn’t quite get back to sleep, so eventually he got up and got dressed. Being in Dana’s apartment without her was weird. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being ditched, but at the same time, he knew she went to the gym. That was a thing she did.

Being a woman sounded like a lot of work sometimes.

He didn’t have anything at her apartment, so he couldn’t take a shower or brush his teeth. He left pretty quickly.

 

_The first time Casey kissed Dana, he expected fireworks. Well, some fireworks. Sparklers, at least._

_Instead, he couldn’t get past the fear that made his palms sweaty, the way he’d almost wussed out completely, walking all the way out the door before making up his mind. The adrenaline was still buzzing as he kissed her. It was frightening, and he didn’t think frightening was what it was supposed to be._

_On the other hand, as Danny had pointed out, he was abysmal at dating and had been off the market for fifteen years, so maybe he didn’t know what the hell romance was supposed to involve anymore._

_Afterwards he was smiling. Dan commented on it. Casey didn’t know what to tell him at first, or even after the show._

_Danny followed him back to their office. “Seriously,” said Danny, smiling himself—it was contagious, apparently. “What happened? You look like Santa showed up and gave you that red bicycle at long last.”_

_Casey glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I kissed Dana.”_

_“Holy crap!” Danny high fived him, which felt juvenile, but then again, Casey felt like he was fourteen again._

_They stood in silence, Danny beaming at him with pride, Casey struggling not to smile and failing._

_“This is big,” said Danny._

_“It’s not that big.”_

_“It’s pretty big!”_

_“Okay. It is big.”_

_“When are you two going out?”_

_“I don’t know yet. She was—we were going to meet up here—” and as if on cue, there was Dana._

_“I’ll just,” said Danny, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, and he beat a quick retreat._

_“Hey,” said Dana, smiling at him._

_“Hey.” The office was still mostly dark._

_“You okay?”_

_“What? Yeah, of course—obviously I’m okay,” he said, already feeling thrown off. “Are_ you _okay?”_

_“Casey.” She was laughing silently. “Breathe.”_

_“I’m breathing!”_

_“It’s a big deal. I get it.”_

_“Why does everyone keep saying that?”_

_“Everyone?”_

_“Danny was just saying it’s_ biiig, _” he said in a mocking imitation of Danny’s voice._

_“Well, maybe he’s right. I know that must gall you to admit.”_

_He rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure.”_

_“So when do you want to go out?”_

_“What?”_

_“On a date. That is what we were thinking about doing, right? I wasn’t thinking about that all by myself?”_

_“Our next night off,” he said decisively._

_Her eyebrows went up just a little, and she seemed disappointed. “That long?”_

_“I need to plan it. It’s got to be good.”_

_“Casey…” She took a step closer to him and put a hand on his arm. “It will be good. It’s us. It’ll be fine.”_

_“It should be better than fine, Dana. I’ve waited too long to tell you how I feel, and I’m going to treat you the way you deserve to be treated.” He took her hands in both of his and stared into her eyes, full of glittering reflections in the low light, fixed on his. “You’re an incredible woman, and you should be with someone who makes you feel that way.”_

_She blinked hard and smiled at him. It was wobbly. “All right, then. Our next night off.”_

_Everything went to hell in a handbasket after that, and he was never entirely sure how, later on._

 

“Mmwha?”

“Danny.”

“Casey, you motherfucker, I am going to—what time is it? You _know_ you can’t wake me up this—”

“Danny, I slept with Dana.”

“What?” Danny went from sounding mostly asleep to completely awake in a matter of seconds.

“Last night. I slept with Dana.”

“So this date went well!”

“I think so?”

“Congratulations, my friend. Congratulations.”

“Is Rebecca over?”

“No, she had a thing last night.”

“Oh.”

“Casey, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Why would you ask?”

“Because sometimes—sometimes getting what you want isn’t easy. I mean, _having_ it, after wanting it for a long time.”

Casey made a noise that came out all rusty. “That’s—ridiculous—I—what are you—”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you at work in like…” Danny trailed off. “Like two hours or something.”

“Fine,” said Casey, suddenly aware that he was bewilderingly angry with Danny and himself and Dana, and he hung up the phone.

 

When Dan got into the office, Casey was already there.

“There’s the man of the hour,” said Dan, slapping Casey’s back. Casey looked up at him with a quick, complicated grin.

Dan dropped onto the couch next to their junk pile. Promotional things from teams, gifts from fans. Random stuff. “So, inquiring minds want to know. What did the date turn out to be? Did you go to the zoo?”

“Glow in the dark mini-golf.”

“Ah.” Dan nodded sagely. “She knows you well.”

“She does indeed.”

“It’s one of her many fine features.”

“She has many fine features, to be sure.”

“Who does?” asked Dana, pushing open the door.

“You do,” Casey said to her, no irony at all in his voice, smiling. She smiled back, dropping her eyes and blushing. Dan surprised himself with a brief pang of something that was almost anger, not quite identifiable. Something about Dana, over-achieving hyper-competent Dana, blushing and smiling, _reduced_ in some way—not that she would have agreed, he thought.

“Good. I’m glad you appreciate them. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you had the funeral footage for the Stewart retrospective.”

Casey brandished the tape. “Right here. We’re going to get that polished up and ready to go.”

“Perfect.” She paused, hand on the door, and glanced back over her shoulder at Casey; she smiled again, small and secretive. “Good to see you today.”

“You, too,” Casey said.

Dan watched Dana go. There was a spring in her step.

“There’s a spring in her step,” he said to Casey.

Casey perked up. “You think so?”

“Natalie got in your head _bad,_ huh?”

“You’d think she would have wanted to build me up!”

“She wasn’t lying in wait this time?”

“No. I have to wonder if Dana called her off.”

“After last time, I couldn’t blame her.”

“Despite her best intentions, I’m not sure she was helpful.”

“She’s like a lioness on the veldt.”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s veldt?”

“You know, I have to admit that I am not entirely sure.”

“I was just wondering.”

“You’ve got your computer up. You should look it up on the Internet.”

Casey made a face. “It’s just so…”

“There are search engines! You can find it.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to use your dictionary?”

“Fine.” Danny rolled his eyes and reached for it.

“I don’t know when our next date is.”

Danny scanned the dictionary page. “You can take me to the Rainbow Room tomorrow night.”

“I meant me and Dana.”

“Well, then you’re probably going to want to talk to Dana about that.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Veldt,” Danny said dramatically. “Open, uncultivated country or grassland.”

“There’s one mystery solved.”

“Now you just have to solve the other mystery.”

“Of when the next date will be taking place?”

“Exactly.”

Casey nodded thoughtfully.

“There’s high veld, middle veld, and low veld, apparently.”

“Interesting. Classified how?”

“By height, evidently.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.”

“I thought so.”

 

Natalie found him shortly before the noon rundown.

“Casey,” she said, barricading him into the corner with her body, “let’s talk.”

“Oh, God,” he said involuntarily.

She steered him ruthlessly into a supply closet. He frowned around it. “Hey, did they ever get those green sticky notes back in?”

“Casey! Focus.”

He sighed. “Do I have to? I don’t have a paper and pencil on me.” Although that excuse did feel flimsy in a supply closet.

“We’re not doing that this time.”

“We’re not?”

“No. Dana may have suggested she’d rip off my head and spit down my neck if I did that again.”

“She’s a wise woman.”

“I wanted to find out if you had any questions.”

“Any… questions?”

“That I could help you with.”

“You wanted to know if I had any questions about my date with Dana, with which you could help me.”

“Yes.”

“I do not.”

“Okay.”

“Now can I go?”

“It’s just that if you did, I would want you to feel safe asking me.”

“I don’t think that would happen.”

“You could ask me.”

“Is there something specific you _want_ me to ask you?”

“You could ask me whether Dana enjoyed the sex.”

“I don’t want to ask you that.”

“But I wouldn’t mind telling you that she did.”

“Oh.” He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “She did?”

Natalie nodded vigorously.

“She did.” He felt his shoulders settling back and he smiled. “Well, then.”

“So if you had any questions—”

“I’d ask you, Natalie. I would.”

“Good.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He stuck his head back into the closet. “Was there anything else she’d—” he lowered his voice. “You know, like me to _try?_ ”

“Not that came up.”

“Okay. Good.”

 

“Isaac,” said Dan.

“Is this important?”

“It is.”

“Is it about the show?”

“It is.”

“Then go ahead.” Isaac gestured at the empty chair across from him. Dan dropped into it.

“Rebecca wants to take things slow.”

“Please get out of my office.”

“It’s not that I don’t understand where she’s coming from. After all, she was married, and that didn’t go well.”

Isaac sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. “Is there any way for me to escape this conversation?”

“How’s your running going?”

“Not fast enough.”

“Then I don’t think there is. Anyway, she was married, and I can see why she’d be a bit leery about committing again. But I’m totally different than Steve, and I really think we’ve got a good chance.”

“Do your odds somehow get worse if you take things slowly?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Then I fail to see why this causes you so much distress.”

“It doesn’t.” Dan opened his mouth and then shut it again, frowning. “It doesn’t,” he repeated more quietly.

“Enough distress to come talk to me about it.”

“Isaac…”

“You want me to say something wise about relationships? Put your mind at ease?”

“It would certainly be appreciated if you could.”

“Sorry, kid. All I’ve got for you is what being married for a very long time has taught me.”

“Which is?”

“You’ve got to go with the flow.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Danny, I know you work in sports. I am sure that you’ve heard that expression before.”

“I have, but I’d appreciate some additional eludication.”

“So it’s not going exactly how you imagined it might. Is that the end of the world?”

“No, but—”

“She needs something, and it’s in your power to give it to her.” Isaac raised his eyebrows. “Give it to her, Danny. Let her have her space and her time.”

“You have a knack for getting to the heart of the issue, Isaac. Not to mention common sense.”

“A lot more than you!”

“Hey!”

“Get out of my office. I actually do have a job here, you know.”

“So do I! What a coincidence.”

Isaac put a palm to his forehead.

 

Casey and Dana’s next date was _the next Sunday._

“Wow,” said Dan. “That’s a while.”

“I don’t get it.” Casey ran a hand over his hair. “I kind of get it. It’s our night off. We can spend more time on it. Have fun.”

“I’m surprised it’s not sooner.”

“I know!”

“Did she say why?”

“She just said it was a good day for it.”

“Maybe it’s been so long since she—”

“If you’re going to say something about sex, don’t.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

“I just don’t understand why, having started having sex with you, she wouldn’t want to _keep_ having sex with you.”

“That’s what I don’t get!” Casey flung his hands in the air. “Natalie _said_ it was good!”

“Maybe it was too good. Maybe it was so toe-curlingly good she had to take a break or else she’d get worn out.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened.”

“Also, congratulations on being able to say ‘sex’ with a straight face.”

“Bite me.”

“Not unless you’re made out of gingerbread.”

Casey groaned. “A _week,_ Danny.”

“A whole week. Will you survive? More importantly, will the _rest_ of us survive listening to you whine and complain about having a date with the beautiful woman with whom you are sleeping?”

“Hey!”

“It’s not that I’m unsympathetic, I just think you need to keep in mind that this is not the worst-case scenario here.”

“What _is?_ ”

“I don’t know. You break up? You get hit by a meteor? There’s a lot of options.”

 

Later, when he told Rebecca about it, she shrugged.

“I’m not surprised.”

“Why aren’t you, though? What have you figured out that I don’t know?”

“Danny…” She sighed, setting down her hairbrush and turning from her vanity to face him. “Do _you_ think Casey actually wants Dana?”

“What? Yes. Obviously. He’s—he’s been chasing her for—”

“And dogs chase cars their whole _lives_ without meaning to _catch_ them.” She picked up her brush again and ran her fingers over the bristles. “Now that he’s got her, does he really know what to _do_ with her? Do they like doing the same things? What do they have in common outside of the office?”

“Uh,” said Dan, trying frantically to think what Dana actually _did_ outside of the office.

“And I think she knows it. I think she’s hoping if they go slow they’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe they will,” he said, but he heard the uncertainty in his voice.

Her lips tightened as she looked down at the brush. She started pulling hair out of it methodically. “Do you _want_ them to?”

“What?”

“I think Natalie was right.” She dropped hair into the trash. “I think you’re afraid that if Casey and Dana get together, you won’t get to spend as much time with Casey.”

“That’s—”

“And that’s _fine_ but I wish you’d _admit_ it. This whole man-is-an-island shtick is getting a little old, don’t you think?”

“What?” he said, painfully aware now that the conversation had gotten completely away from him.

“You’re saying all you want is for him to be happy. Danny, that’s not the kind of thing you say when it’s _true._ ”

He shook his head. “I’m—have I been talking about this too much? I’m sorry.”

“Only every waking minute for the last two weeks,” she muttered, but she looked up and relented with a smile. “I’m sorry. I know this is strange for you.”

“It is?”

“You and Casey being in relationships.”

“What—he was always married.”

“Sure, but he wasn’t _happy._ And now he might actually be happy.”

“Are you saying I don’t want my best friend to be happy?”

“I’m saying you’re so used to him being unhappy that this kind of change is unsettling.”

“You—” He stopped. “You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?”

“Danny!” She was shocked. It looked genuine. “That’s not it at all!”

“Really? Because it _sounds_ like that.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You think I can’t handle Casey and Dana dating?” Dan could hear his voice getting louder. “You think I’ve got some kind of problem with that? Why do people _think_ that?”

“Because I said two words about it and you’re shouting at me!” Rebecca’s face had gone pale.

“I—”

“Danny, if I wanted a man to yell at me, I would have stayed with Steve!”

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. You’re—maybe you’re right, and I am—insecure. But however—whatever’s going on, I shouldn’t yell at you. I won’t do it again.”

She stared at him with huge, damp eyes, face full of a wild anger barely held in check. It frightened him, and it made him love her more.

He let the silence stretch that time.

Eventually she said, “All right. But I mean it. One more time, and you’re out. You hear me? This is a two-strikes situation.”

He nodded and gathered her into his arms, kissing her, kissing her hair and her cheeks and her lips, and she relented.

And then they didn’t talk at all for a while.

 

“Casey.”

Dana was staring at Sky Rink.

“ _Casey,_ ” she said, louder, and she didn’t sound happy.

“What?” he asked defensively. “I thought it would be fun!”

“Why would you bring me to an _ice rink?_ ”

“You love skating!”

“I love _watching_ skating! I can’t skate.” She was shaking her head, slowly, still staring around the ice. “I can’t skate,” she repeated quietly. She didn’t sound mad. Lost, maybe.

“I was _sure_ you skated.”

“Natalie skates.”

“I know Natalie skates. I was certain that you also skated.”

“You didn’t ask me, though, did you?” She still wasn’t looking at him. “You aren’t _going_ to ask me. If we keep dating it’s going to be like this. Just realizing over and over again how little you’ve bothered to learn about me.”

“Dana,” he said, stricken.

“Am I wrong?” She turned to look at him. He wished she hadn’t: the full impact of the question in those eyes was too much. There were tears brimming. She wasn’t letting them fall. “Are you going to change?”

“I…”

She gave him plenty of time before she shook her head and turned back towards the entrance. “I’ll get a cab home.”

“Dana,” he said again.

She held up a hand. “Don’t. This is—this is already hard. Don’t make it harder.”

She left.

 

Dan was at Rebecca’s when his cellphone went off.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, abandoning the couch to dig it out from the general mess of the table next to the door. “Hello?”

“Danny,” said Casey. He sounded awful.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think Dana just dumped me.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“ _Yeah._ ”

“You—you want to go get a drink?”

“I want to get a drink and then I want to drink it, preferably in the privacy of somewhere with four enclosed walls and a grand total of zero strangers.”

“Are you at your place?”

“No.”

“Where are you?”

“Standing outside Sky Rink.”

“Oh, man. Okay. Uh—you go home. I’ll get some whiskey and bring it over.”

“Okay.”

“See you in a few, all right?”

“Yeah.” Casey hung up.

Dan turned to see Rebecca watching him with a combination of anger and sorrow.

“Casey?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“You’re going?”

“Yeah,” he said, feeling like a heel. But he _had_ to.

She nodded like she was making up her mind about something. “Okay.” She gave him a luminous, unhappy smile. “Take good care of him.”

“I will. Thank you,” he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek, “you’re the _best,_ I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

“For dinner after the show?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

He rushed out the door.

 

Casey, after his third shot of whiskey (of _course_ he had shot glasses, a neat little set of them lined up in the cupboard next to the wine glasses; the same shot glasses he’d had since Dan met him, minus one he’d broken during the divorce), said, “Do you think she’ll change her mind?”

“Anything’s possible,” said Dan, aware that he was slurring slightly.

“I don’t _understand.”_ Casey turned the glass around in his hands. “The sex—Natalie said the sex was good.”

“Yeah.”

“I even asked for feedback _._ Granted, from Natalie. Not from Dana. But Natalie said if I had any questions I could ask so I did.”

“And there were no areas highlighted for improvement?”

“None.” Casey morosely poured a fourth shot.

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” He pounded the shot in one go, throat working, and set the glass down with a sigh.

“I’m sorry.”

“She has _amazing_ breasts,” Casey said sadly. “Just fantastic. Perfect—perfect handfuls, you know?” He cupped his hands, to demonstrate. “I can’t believe I don’t get to see them again.”

“Well, maybe she changes her mind. She’s only done that about fifty times so far.”

“I don’t think she will.” Casey braced his elbows on his knees. “Because she was _right._ I don’t—how do I not know that stuff about her?”

“That she has great breasts?”

“What she likes _._ What she does. I know everything about you,” said Casey. There was a weird weight to the words. “I know things about you I didn’t know about _Lisa._ ”

“Oh, thanks, comparing me to Lisa, exactly what I want to hear.”

“I’m not c—I’m saying I _know_ you. How do I not know Dana like I know you?”

Dan shrugged. “You and I hang out a lot.”

“We hang out a _lot,”_ said Casey as though he’d proved something.

“We have for many years.”

“ _Many._ ”

“We’re good friends.”

“Unto us has befallen—” Casey yawned widely. “Befallen a mighty friendship.”

“Casey.”

“My frat.”

“I know. You’ve told me this about a million times.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time we—”

“You got forty hours of community service and Patrick Benhoffer put a ‘kick me’ sign on your back on your way to the soup kitchen.”

“Hm.”

“A small child from the church that ran the soup kitchen kicked you.”

“He did.” Casey took his fifth shot.

“It was mildly traumatic.”

“What? No.”

“I have to assume, given the frequency with which you repeat that story to me, that it made some kind of traumatic impact.”

“He was four feet tall! It’s a funny story.”

“It _was_ a funny story the first time. We’re on the fiftieth repetition and somehow _I’m_ telling it now.”

“You don’t tell it right.”

“But I do tell it much faster than you do, which is its own kind of virtue.”

“Danny, I don’t know if I want Dana to change her mind.”

“Oh. Okay. Oh, boy. That’s a big subject shift there.” Dan drew his knee up under him. “Uh, why is that?”

“You know this has been a confusing time in my life.”

“You’ve been saying that for a while now.”

“I have?”

“At least since Dana got all verklempt over Sam.”

“She did not—what’s verklempt?”

“In a kerfuffle.”

“Now you’re just screwing with me.”

“Casey, it is usually a safe bet that I’m screwing with you, but those are both real words.”

“It’s been a confusing time. In my life.”

“I know that.”

“Dana is a good friend.”

“She is indeed.”

“She’s not my best friend. That’s—that’s you.”

“Obviously.”

“But we’re _good_ as friends, and I don’t—what if I’m dropping the ball here because I don’t _want_ things to change?”

“Do you think that’s what’s happening?”

“I honestly don’t know.” Casey groaned and put his hands over his eyes. “I’m _bad_ at this, Dan, we should have all seen that coming.”

“That’s a fair assessment.”

“You saw it coming.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You said I screw up my romantic life. You said I don’t have street cred.”

“Are you under the impression that you _do?_ ” asked Dan, finding himself smiling reluctantly.

Casey’s eyes widened. “Of course I do! I went on _eight_ dates with women other than Dana. Nine? Ten? Something like that.”

“Eight whole dates.”

“I know that’s a light fortnight for you—”

“ _Fortnight?_ Give me that whiskey.”

“—but think what a momentous change it was for me, in terms of pace. Eight women! I was married for so long. I didn’t have to think about dating and all of this, this modern crap.”

“Would you rather go courting in a horse and buggy? Oh, wait, we already know the answer to that question, Mr. Central Park Carriage Ride.”

“I didn’t have to watch Sex and the City. Which I did, by the way. I watched _four episodes_ of it.”

“And they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“I don’t understand anything that is happening in that show,” Casey confided to him in a whisper. “Why are they _like_ that? Why are those _men_ like that?”

“Well, I think that’s the point, it’s a candid exploration of—”

“I’m afraid of Manhattan thanks to that show.”

“You were afraid of Manhattan when we lived in Dallas.”

“Yes, I was. And I think my fears have been borne out by the events.”

“What events? We go to work and we drink.”

“I got a divorce, and now Dana’s not sleeping with me.”

“Okay, that divorce was coming whether you moved to New York or not, I think even you have to admit that.”

“…Maybe.”

“And Dana would have been crazy in any city.”

“She’s not crazy.”

“The dating plan?”

“Okay, she’s kind of crazy. Or she was. She’s—I think she’s over that now.”

“I’ll give you that.” Dan poured himself another shot—he was only on his fourth, and Casey was casting longing glances toward the bottle again.

“And what if I’ve been wrong?”

“What?”

“This whole time.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“What if I’ve been wrong about who I am? What I want? What I’m looking for?”

“That doesn’t seem likely. You’re thirty-five.”

“I’ve been wrong about things before.”

“Many things! Many times.”

“See?”

“But I think being wrong about what you want out of your entire life might be a little much, even for you.”

“I’m not saying my _entire_ life, I’m saying my love life.”

“Oh.” Dan pondered that. “That sounds entirely possible.”

“Take another shot with me.”

“I’m not sure you need another.”

“I went down on Dana and she dumped me.”

“I, on the other hand, _definitely_ need another.”

When Casey finally petered out, after making a few dozen more vague and cryptic comments about needing change in his life (of course he needed change, he’d been wearing the same style of khaki pants since 1985, there was photographic evidence of that tacked to their office corkboard) and feeling unprepared for such (also obvious, see: office corkboard Khaki Wall of Shame), Dan convinced him to take out his contacts. Casey cursed from the bathroom as he dropped one, but evidently managed to retrieve it.

“You’ll be happy about this decision in the morning,” he said to Casey comfortingly as Casey leaned heavily on the frame of his bedroom door.

“You’re good to me.” Casey yawned widely, turning to half-fall into bed. “If I had to pick, I’d pick you.”

“That’s very nice. Wait, is it? For what? Are we talking some kind of hockey team here? Because I like having all of my teeth. I’m very attached to them. They’re nice teeth, even my dentist agrees.”

“Best friend,” Casey mumbled and was out like a light.

Dan would have been lying if he said that didn’t fill his chest with a particular warm glow. It was one thing to know he was important to Casey; it was another thing to hear it.

 

_Casey was in a fraternity in college. He pledged Psi Upsilon as a frosh, and there were the requisite kidnappings from bed and full-throated oratory from otherwise unremarkable 22-year-olds. “Unto us has befallen a mighty friendship. Not just empty words, gentlemen! You must be prepared to defend this motto with your life!” which somehow meant they had to both be prepared for getting paddled at any moment and also be willing and able to consume an unwise amount of beer and hard liquor._

_It was also where he met Jake, the closest thing to a best friend he would have until Danny. The guys, at large, didn’t split themselves into cliques. Whoever was around got invited to things. But Jake and Casey shared a room in the sprawling fraternity house in sophomore year, and it wasn’t a bad thing._

_Jake, it was true, didn’t care about grades like Casey did. In fact, Jake didn’t care about a lot of things. He was interested in beer and in women—Casey would routinely return from the library to find a sock on the door, banished to the couch in the living room for the night—but perhaps the limitations in his interests spoke to the depth of his passions._

_They were sitting on the roof, splitting a six-pack, when Casey said, “I’m not sure about Lisa.”_

_“Man,” said Jake with feeling. “That’s tough.”_

_“She’s really—she’s smart, you know, and she’s funny.”_

_“And banging,” added Jake helpfully. He’d met her a few times. Casey had heard his thoughts on Lisa’s tits before._

_“Yeah.” There was no arguing with that._

_“So what’s the problem?”_

_“I feel like there’s something missing.”_

_Jake hummed thoughtfully. “Like anal?”_

_Casey snorted a laugh and almost choked on his beer. “No, dude. It’s like… you know Dana?”_

_“Yeah, she’s got a bitchin’ body.”_

_“We get along. Really well.”_

_“You want to fuck Dana?”_

_“Maybe.”_

_“I mean, obviously you want to fuck Dana.” Jake chuckled at himself, shaking his head. “But do you want to fuck her bad enough to dump Lisa?”_

_“I don’t think so. But when I talk to her…”_

_“Oh, look at the Trotskyite,_ talking _to women,” mocked Jake. Casey had no idea what he meant, but pressed bravely on._

_“When I talk to her, it’s easy. Talking to Lisa is never easy.”_

_“That’s because she’s a real bitch.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Dana’s nice.”_

_“Yeah.” Casey took another drink. “She is.”_

_“Maybe you could get them both in for a ménage a trois,” said Jake wistfully and with a truly appalling attempt at a French accent. “Get all four of those beautiful breasts in one place at one time.”_

_“I don’t think either of them would go for it.”_

_“Maybe they’d be into making out with each other.” Jake had clearly gone to a different, happier place in his mind._

_Casey let it go. Jake was a good guy. He was trying to help. He just didn’t understand the problem. Casey wanted something from being in a relationship; he wanted more than the sex, which, granted, was athletic and delightful with Lisa. Her sorority sisters all played tennis, and she had the leg muscles of a triathlete._

_He wanted to talk. He wanted to have fun. Sometimes Lisa was fun, and sometimes Lisa was funny at his expense, and he didn’t know how to tell her that he hated it when she crossed that line. He thought she probably knew, anyway, but kept doing it. Partly to take him down a peg or two. She didn’t hide that she thought he was pretentious._

_Dana never did that. Dana was fun to talk to. Never in the explosive way that Lisa was, where they could end up fighting or fucking and he never knew which to expect._

_Dana was nice. She was a good person._

_She deserved better than Casey, trying to make up his mind._

 

The next week was pure, unmitigated hell at the studio. Kim and Elliot had taken to working from little-used corners; Dave wore headphones constantly while working. Jeremy had decided that he was on Casey’s side, despite Casey’s overly loud, frequently repeated assurances that there _were_ no sides and everyone was going to be _professional_ about this, with the end result that Dana had come in one morning to find her desk chair thinly coated in glue. Not only had she _not_ sat in it, she’d given Jeremy a blistering dressing down that had culminated in an assignment to go cover a rural female ice hockey team that was doing quite well, for being from Mississippi.

“And as Kim is my witness,” Dan overheard her yelling, “if I get _one complaint_ from _any_ of these women about how you act, I will fire your ass so fast you’ll end up working for Nerds Unlimited trying to sell pocket protectors!”

Jeremy emerged from her office thin-lipped and paler than usual, and Dan hastily pretended he’d only been paying attention to a notice posted about an upcoming employee picnic. Not that it mattered; Jeremy blew right by him.

Despite Casey’s protestations, he and Dana couldn’t seem to speak to each other about _anything_ without devolving into a shouting match in short order. Dan sat through several of them, stone-faced in his office, typing whatever came to mind until one of them stormed off (usually Dana) and left him to deal with the other (usually Casey).

“Can you _believe_ her?” asked Casey after Thursday’s fifth blow-up, this time regarding a disagreement about the importance of a planned segment on Lindsay Davenport’s chances the following year. “You’d think I was kicking puppies in here!”

“Casey,” said Dan, “please consider apologizing.”

“I’ve apologized! I’ve apologized like six times.”

“I mean for being a terrible boyfriend.”

“We went out _three times_ and we didn’t even make it all the way through the third date. I was more of a _boyfriend_ to Pixley than to Dana.”

“And you don’t think that’s part of the problem?”

“What?”

Dan shook his head. “Casey. You yanked her chain for almost two decades and now it turns out that once you got her you didn’t really want her.”

“I wanted her!” Casey seemed as surprised as Dan did that he was yelling. He lowered his voice. “I thought I wanted her.”

“Yeah, you _thought_ a lot of things, but as soon as you actually started seeing each other it all fell apart.”

“And that’s my fault?”

“It kind of is.” Dan jerked his chin toward the bullpen. “Maybe she dumped you, but you think she wanted to do that? You think she didn’t feel rejected? Not good enough?”

Casey sat back, looking flummoxed. “I—not good enough? That’s insane. Dana’s amazing.”

“But not amazing enough for you, apparently. Or at least that’s the message she got.”

“She dumped me,” Casey said, but like he was trying out the words rather than talking to Dan.

Dan shrugged and went back to trying to write the disaster that was their script.

“She didn’t want to dump me.”

“Is my participation in this conversation required? Because if not, I really need to write about Botero and this isn’t helping.”

“You think I _made_ her dump me?” asked Casey.

“I think you were a lot more ambivalent about that relationship than you let on. Whether it was like that from the beginning, what damage was done with the dating plan, I don’t know, but for some reason or combination of reasons, you were not able to be the boyfriend—no, the partner—that she wanted you to be.”

“Damn.”

“It happens.”

Casey tapped out what sounded like half a sentence and then stopped. “I should apologize.”

“You really, really should.”

“Should I do it now?”

“I would suggest thinking at least a little bit about what you want to say, but sooner is probably better than later, on the whole.”

 

Casey sauntered into Dana’s office with what he hoped was a studied nonchalance but suspected was actually an uncomfortable stiffness, hands jammed in his pockets.

“What is it?” she asked, short and clipped.

“It’s been brought to my attention that I should apologize.”

“That’s usually the case.”

“Dana.”

She looked up, face still fierce. “What is it, Casey?”

“I’m sorry. For not realizing—for not doing better. For not being the man you deserve. You deserve someone who puts in the time and the effort to really know you, and someone who can put his whole heart into it, instead of getting hung up on the past.”

She sat back, pulling off her reading glasses. “Well.”

“I know I—I know it was hard on both of us. How I paid attention to you when I shouldn’t have, and didn’t when I should have. And I’m sorry for that.”

She blew out a breath between her teeth. “I’m sorry, too,” she said quietly.

“We’ve always gotten along so well, I think it’s been easy for me to just assume that would—” He waved vaguely. “Translate, somehow, into the romantic arena. Without having to try.”

“It clearly didn’t.”

“Yeah.”

“You know something?” she said. She was staring, not at him, but off into the distance, or possibly at her potted plant. “Something happened a long time ago. All the way back in Dallas. I never told you about it, but I wonder if I should.”

“What was it?”

“Danny didn’t want me to tell you.” She tapped the eraser of her pencil against her lips. “And I feel like I finally understand why.”

“What was it?” He found himself sitting on the edge of her desk, drawn closer, an undercurrent of alarm.

“He didn’t want me to tell you because he thought you’d be mad. And I think he’s right. I think he was right then, and he’s right now.”

“Dana…”

“He kissed me. In your backyard, after a party.”

Casey was silent.

Dana said, “He thought you’d be mad and at the time I assumed it was because—we both knew, even though you were married, you had a thing for me. But it’s not, is it? It’s not like that at all. It’s like me and Gordon and Sally. I was _furious_ when I found out about Gordon and Sally, but more than that I was furious about _you_ and Sally.”

“What…” Casey shook his head.

“It’s not about me at all.” Dana carefully set down her pencil. “It wasn’t about Gordon.”

“What are you saying?”

“That as much as you and I have been friends, good friends, for a long time now, I’ve never been part of that no girls allowed treehouse club you two have, and I never would have been.”

“Dana—”

“And as tempting as it is to blame Danny—you _know_ Lisa blamed Danny—it’s not his fault. He thinks it is. But it’s yours. You don’t _want_ to let anyone else in, so you make damn sure they stay out.” Dana sighed. “And you like it that way.”

“That’s crazy.”

“You’re not mad at Danny for kissing me. You’re mad at him because he was going to mess up your treehouse.”

“I never had a treehouse!”

“It’s a _metaphorical_ treehouse,” she said pityingly. “God, Casey, keep up.”

“I’m not mad at Danny,” said Casey, hoping that would make it true.

“Of course you are. Just don’t… don’t fight with him, okay?”

“I’m not going to fight with him.”

“And for what it’s worth, I accept your apology. I believe that you have _some_ idea of what you’ve done. But I’m glad we’re not dating anymore. I’m glad we’re over that, and maybe now I can finally move on.”

Casey took a deep breath. “Then I’m glad we had this conversation. I don’t enjoy fighting with you, however it may seem.”

“I know you don’t.” She gave him a sad half-smile. “So stop giving me crap about every segment, okay?”

“Okay.”

 

“Hey,” said Danny when Casey walked back into their office, “what do you think about Pantani?”

“I think he’s a much better cycler than I’ll ever be.”

“Fair, but not something I can use to lead a segment.”

“Did you kiss Dana?”

Danny slowly pushed away from his desk. “Okay. We’re, uh, we’re having this conversation, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I did. Many years ago. When we’d been drinking.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I—what?”

“It’s okay, Dan,” said Casey, who felt very, very tired indeed. “It’s fine.”

“Oh.” Danny rested his hands gingerly on his legs. “I was expecting it to be less fine.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, except that it’s fine.”

“It was a very brief kiss.”

“I see.”

“No tongue.” Danny winced. “Maybe a little bit of tongue. Just a hint, though.”

“Danny…”

“Got it. I will stop telling you about the kiss.”

“I would appreciate that.”

“Since, you know, now you’ve slept with _and_ been dumped by her, and all.”

“I’ve kissed her more than you have.”

“By a lot.”

“I don’t know why that matters, but it really feels like it does.”

“I concur.” Danny hesitated. “You’re really not mad?”

Casey shook his head. “Dana told me not to be.”

“Well, it’s good to know she’s got my back, although frankly I’m pretty surprised that _worked._ ”

“Maybe I’m growing.”

“Maybe you are, but are you absolutely certain you’re not just waiting for a less opportune time to get pissed at me?”

“I’m ninety-five percent certain.”

“One in twenty?” Danny rolled out his shoulders. “I’ll take those odds.”

“Oh, hey,” said Casey, looking up at the monitors in the corner of their office. “Did you see that?”

“Is this just a cheap tact—” Danny broke off as he saw the play Casey was looking at. “Whoa!”

They didn’t come back to the topic, for which Casey was grateful. The thought of Dana and Danny kissing made him uncomfortable on some primal level, like an itch in his skull, and yet he couldn’t stop replaying it over and over again.

 

_Dan had always expected, on some level, that Casey would find out. He had always assumed that Casey would demand an explanation._

_And he didn’t have one, not really. Except that in the firelight, Dana looked precariously beautiful. She was one of the few people he knew who understood and respected what he did—who neither lionized him nor diminished his accomplishments. And in a world that also contained Casey McCall, wunderkind extraordinaire, that was saying something._

_Dallas was hot and uncomfortable and at times unpleasant. Dallas was full of bumper stickers about Jesus that Dan couldn’t imagine Jesus would have approved of, had he known about them. Dallas was also full of people who loved sports, which was nice, because he could wander into just about any bar and get recognized by at least one person, and more often than not these days they were buying him a drink._

_He’d started getting hit on. That was actually pretty great. It took some of the pressure off; he’d had to work for it in the past, and walking up to a woman was always an exercise in preparing for a rejection. Those ten or fifteen feet would feel like walking the plank, but if he didn’t do it he’d end up beating himself up over it for the rest of the night. What if she was special? What if the way his stomach dropped was love at first sight, and he’d blown it off out of fear? When the women came up to him, it took that first dose of fear out of the equation, and he could start out at least fifty percent smoother._

_It was less great that he still felt himself getting sweaty and panicky after he slept with them, when they were tangling themselves around him like clinging vines, and he always had to get up and leave—he knew the women hated it and he hated himself for it. He tried to call them, but found that his hasty departures meant that plenty of women weren’t up for round two._

_He didn’t know how to balance it. How to deal with any of it. If they wanted more from him, they always made noises about meeting the people from the show, meeting Casey, and he’d get this metallic taste in his mouth._

_That was separate. They didn’t—he pretended to himself that it had nothing to do with his fear that they’d like Casey better, because that would be stupid. Right? Casey was married. (Look at Casey with Dana. Casey let being married stop him, but just barely.)_

_But Dan tended to drop women around the time they started agitating to meet more of his friends._

 

When Casey said casually, “Hey, I’m going running tomorrow, want to come?” Dan didn’t know what it would set in motion.

Maybe he should have known. Nothing good ever seemed to come of jogging. He’d tried to pick up the habit a dozen times, and it had never stuck.

But instead he said, “Sure,” and when he got home he hunted up the running shoes he’d purchased in a fit of blind optimism the year before.

The run started out well enough. They met up near Central Park, Dan keenly aware of how ridiculous Casey looked in his sweats, Casey apparently unconcerned that he resembled nothing so much as a startled giraffe. Casey chatted with increasing effort as they went along, telling him about Charlie’s volcano for a school project.

“They still do those?” said Dan, half-panting. “I thought it would all be Internet stuff these days.”

“Well, he can make a webpage for extra credit.”

“He’s going to be the future.”

“The future doesn’t know how to make salt dough.”

“That’s what parents are for.”

“Damn str—ow!” Casey crumbled to the side, going down in a blaze of glory. Well, not glory, exactly. More like a shower of misplaced gravel, raining down from what was, in retrospect, a hole in the path.

“Case!” Dan had dropped to his knees next to Casey before fully registering what was happening. Casey wasn’t getting up.

“Oh, god _damn_ it,” said Casey, wincing and clutching his ankle. “That _stings._ ”

“Buddy. You all right?”

Casey made a face down at his ankle. “Honestly?”

“I would prefer honesty to the alternatives.”

“I don’t think I can walk on this.”

“Casey…”

“I’m serious.” Casey sighed, raising his eyes to meet Dan’s. Their faces were close together, Casey sitting with his leg drawn up against his chest, Dan kneeling next to him. “It’s either a bad sprain or a break.”

“You sound pretty sure about that for a guy without an MD.”

“ _Gymnastics,_ Danny, this isn’t my first twisted ankle.” Casey sounded exasperated. His cheeks were getting red.

Dan sat back on his heels. “Well, shit.”

“You’re telling me.”

“What about the Comets?”

Casey let his head sag back on his shoulders. “ _Shit_.”

“You’re supposed to be at Madison Square Garden _tonight,_ Casey.”

“I know that.”

“You can’t do the story on crutches.”

“I _know_ that!”

Dan knew the answer right about the time it occurred to Casey; they stared at each other.

“You can’t,” said Casey. “Dinner with Rebecca’s parents.”

“I _have_ to.”

“They can send someone else.”

“That doesn’t work and you know it. They wanted one of us there and one of us in the studio. This way, it can still happen.”

“You’re going to miss the dinner.” Casey’s mouth had a grim set. “Rebecca’s going to be so pissed.”

“She knows how much work matters to me.”

Casey laughed hollowly. “Yeah, I used to say that.”

“Casey—”

“Danny, don’t be an idiot. Let them send somebody else.” Casey grimaced as he moved his ankle. “And also, call me a fucking cab. I need to go to the emergency room.”

So Dan called a cab, and he insisted on going with Casey to the ER—not that Casey complained much—and sat with him through the interminable (two-hour) wait to get X-rays to confirm that nothing was broken, calling Dana along the way to inform her, which resulted in a minor explosion of concern and blame until he told her he’d do the piece from the Garden. He could hear her relief.

“You’ll need a brace,” said the doctor, a kindly man with an Indian accent, “and you’ll need to stay off it as much as possible, Mr. McCall.”

“Sure,” said Casey.

“He _means_ it, Casey!” hissed Dan.

The doctor quirked a small smile at Dan. “I do indeed mean it.”

“Don’t take his side!” Casey glared at Dan. “I competed on worse than this!”

“Yeah, eighteen _years_ ago, tough guy.”

“You don’t lose grit!”

“You have _lost_ the grit, assuming you ever had it. Come on.”

“I can still work.”

“Yeah, from the _desk,_ where you’re _sitting._ ” Dan turned to the doctor. “I’m right, right? He shouldn’t be out doing field pieces.”

“I’m assuming field pieces would mean putting weight on the ankle?”

“Maybe not,” said Casey.

“Definitely,” said Dan, glowering back at Casey.

“Then not for a few weeks, no.”

“A few _weeks?_ ”

“I thought you were the expert on injuries!” Dan rolled his eyes. “It’s not like knowing this is your _job_ or anything. Of _course_ it’s a few weeks, and you’re lucky that’s all it is.”

“Lucky!” Casey sounded ready to start yelling again.

“Mr. McCall,” interjected the doctor, “if you want this to _heal,_ a few weeks it is.”

Casey sighed deeply. “Look, we need to get back to the studio.”

It was true. It was well past the noon rundown, despite their unreasonably early jog, and they had a show to write.

Casey was just antsy to get to work. Once they rolled in and settled down to the serious business of writing, he calmed down tremendously. The sympathy from the women seemed to be a significant factor there, and Dan tried hard not to get sulky about it. Abby had choice words for sulking.

Somewhere around four, Casey said, “So how’d Rebecca take it?”

Dan’s head jerked up and he stared at Casey.

“Oh, Danny.”

“I didn’t—I forgot—”

“Call her right now!”

“I’m calling, I’m calling!” But rather than using the phone in their office, Dan got up, grabbing his cell, and went to make the call from the privacy of the greenroom.

 

When Danny came back in from calling Rebecca to tell her he wouldn’t be making the all-important dinner with her parents, the first thing Casey noticed was how tight Danny’s jaw was. Clenched, about half a step short of the tic Danny got when things were really going to hell.

“Hey,” said Casey.

“Don’t,” said Danny. There was no heat to it. He sounded horribly tired, and he looked like it, too.

Casey stared at him, trying to judge what would be better: pushing it, or leaving it lie. It was hard to know.

“I mean it,” added Danny after a moment. “And stop looking at me.”

Casey put his hands up, palms facing upwards: _okay._

But Danny was quiet after that, and when he was getting ready to go to the Garden, he looked pale and uncomfortable. Casey wanted to tell him _you don’t have to go_ but at that point, he really did; they couldn’t have gotten backup on that short of notice.

So Casey waved from his position on the couch with his foot propped up when Danny said, “I’m taking off,” and a little bit later Danny called him on his cell from the Garden.

“What’s up?” asked Casey briskly. He’d just had a brilliant idea for a turn of phrase to describe the failure of David Cool to be anything resembling cool, and he needed to get it down before he forgot it, so he was typing as Danny answered.

“Not much. Bill’s just getting the camera set up.”

“Oh, is he doing that weird thing with the cloth?”

“Yeah.”

“Is that some kind of superstition? I’ve never been sure.”

“I don’t know and I’m frankly a little afraid to ask.”

“Thanks for doing this,” said Casey, because it seemed important.

Danny made a noncommittal noise. “It’s fine.”

“How’s the crowd?”

“A little rowdy.”

“Not the worst way to start a game.”

“No, but if I get mauled in a riot it’s all your fault for deciding to _jog_ again.” Danny’s voice was a little wrong, too tight and too sharp, but the material was classic.

“How was I to know jogging had risk factors for musculoskeletal injury? Everyone’s always telling us how good it is for the heart.”

“Basic logic. Any sport where you’re going over uneven ground carries a risk.”

“It was a jogging path!”

“Yeah, and I had to prop your ass up just to get you off that path to the taxi, so I deserve some real credit, is all I’m saying.”

“You can have that credit.”

“Good.”

They were quiet for a minute.

“How’s your ankle?” asked Danny.

“It’s fine.” The dull throb had receded, under frequent icing, and keeping it elevated was helping a lot.

“Having any flashbacks to your gymnastics days?”

“You know it.”

“What the worst injury you ever had?”

“Broke my wrist.”

Danny whistled softly. “That sounds painful.”

“It really was.”

“When’d you do that?”

“Slipped off the pommel horse.”

“I thought you were more of a rings guy.”

“I was. That’s probably why I slipped off the pommel horse.”

“Yikes.”

“That’s about what I said, only louder and with a few more expletives.”

“Expletives? Come on. I’ve seen photos. You were so clean-cut, I bet you said ‘gosh darn it to heck!’”

Casey snorted. “Have _you_ ever broken a wrist?”

“I can’t say that I have, no.”

“Then you don’t know the level of profanity that’s appropriate to the occasion.”

“Hey, I tore my meniscus that one time!”

“Yeah, doing what? Remind me again.” Casey was petty. In his heart of hearts, he acknowledged that.

Danny sighed. “…tackle football with the guys.”

“Sorry, which guys? Was this when you were playing semi-professionally?”

“No.”

“Or was it when you were working at a print shop and you had a game with the baristas from the mall?”

“Shut up,” said Danny, but he was laughing again, which was something.

“Because I seem to recall you tore your meniscus getting tackled by a white guy named Fabian with dreadlocks.”

“I was _this close_ to a touchdown!”

“You were at the ten-yard line.”

“I was a strong runner before my tragic injury.”

“Do you want to get together after the show?”

Danny hummed softly, considering. The noise buzzed in Casey’s ear, not unpleasantly. “I’ll think about it. I’m guessing you’re talking like watching a movie or something.”

“Or the game. I can get the tape.”

“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see.”

“Alcohol could be involved.”

“Are you allowed to drink?”

“I’m on _Advil,_ Danny, not heroin.”

“Well, ex _cuse_ me.”

“Anyway, think about it.”

“I will.” There was a muffled noise in the background. “Bill’s finished the camera and Joe’s yelling at me about sound.”

“That’s ironic.”

“Not really, though. Okay. I’ll see you later.”

After they hung up, Casey sat for a couple of minutes, turning his phone around in his hands. They hadn’t mentioned Rebecca; hadn’t said her name. But Danny wasn’t in as bad of shape as Casey would have expected if they’d broken it off, so it was probably going to be all right.

 _For now,_ his brain treacherously addended the thought.

Which was—that was just uncalled for. That was cold. Danny was a great boyfriend, and Rebecca was a smart, accomplished, beautiful woman who probably recognized what a great thing she had going. Or at least, recognized it _now,_ because God knew she hadn’t seemed to grasp it the first time around.

But then, Casey had been married, and the hell of going from _being married_ to _being divorced_ was that the process wasn’t even remotely linear. It wasn’t like there was some point where all the good went away and it was pure hell. Even at the end, he’d still looked at Lisa and seen the woman who’d cheered him on in a pie-eating contest at the state fair; who’d told Charlie every single time he came home, “Say hi to Daddy!” in a bright and loving voice. Lisa hunched over the dining room table, crying with a glass of wine in her hand and a half-empty bottle next to her, blended seamlessly into Lisa arching her back over him in orgasm. The Lisa who told him he wasn’t primary custody material because he couldn’t be fucked to speak to his own son on a daily basis even when he _did_ live at home was the same Lisa who put her feet in his lap and played Jeopardy with him, shouting along happily to Alex Trebek.

He couldn’t blame Rebecca about Steve. Not the way Danny had.

Except that he _could,_ because he _knew_ Danny and he didn’t know Steve. He knew how thoughtful Danny was and how kind. He could guess about what kind of man Steve was at home from how Steve was on air and at the industry events where they’d seen each other a handful of times. And Steve had nothing on Danny. Hell, even on the most superficial level, Steve wasn’t half as handsome as Danny. Steve had that square-jawed television attractiveness that most men in sports shared, but Danny was different; Danny was special.

Danny was—

There was _nothing weird_ about thinking about it.

They were in _television._ Of course Casey had thought about how Danny looked. Danny couldn’t pull off any facial hair, or the shadows became totally unmanageable and Lighting had a fit. Danny did best in jewel tones because he was pale with dark hair and cool undertones. When they’d had to do their own makeup, back in Dallas, Danny had borrowed Casey’s trick of using foam wedges to apply foundation, and the first time Danny had done a full face Casey had looked over and thought Danny looked like a stranger, almost plastic.

It had been the first time Casey realized that Danny wasn’t going to be a gawky college kid forever.

It wasn’t weird. They were friends who worked in television. Casey had seen Danny with cold cream smeared over his face to get the pancake makeup off; of course he had opinions about how Danny looked.

He just couldn’t understand, on some fundamental level, why Rebecca would ever have hesitated. And why, having Danny now, she wasn’t being more careful with him.

 

Danny’s report from Madison Square Garden that night was, if Casey felt inclined to admit it, a joy to watch. He had a good rapport with the players, probably better than Casey would have, and when he talked to Cynthia she was all smiles. They indulged in some good-natured ribbing, and then Danny threw it back to Casey.

It was taped, which Casey knew, but it still felt jarring to finish up thanking Danny on the monitor only to turn around and see that Danny had crept back into the studio. He was standing back out behind the ring of cameras and techs.

On the next c-break, Danny sauntered up to the desk and leaned forward onto it, bracing himself on his elbows. “Hello, Tina.”

“Hello, Dan,” she said, giving him what seemed to Casey to be an unduly critical eye. “Are you going to be weird again?”

“Tina, I am done being weird.” Danny sketched a quick gesture over his chest. “Cross my heart.”

She nodded and eased back in the seat.

“When were you weird?” asked Casey.

“You were out. Don’t worry about it.”

Tina said, “Did you have a good time at the game?”

“I did indeed.” Danny gave her a smile. “It was exciting.”

“Think they’re going to go all the way?”

“It’s the Comets and they just won the first game. If they _don’t_ go all the way, I want a refund from my sports predicting school.”

Tina pursed her lips. “New York’s pretty disappointed.”

“New York should be! It was close. We could have pulled that out of the fire.”

Casey rolled his eyes. “Just because you’ve got a thing for Tari Phillips—”

“Okay, first of all, who _wouldn’t_ have a thing for Tari Phillips—”

Tina coughed. “Danny, get out of the way. We’re back from commercial in thirty.”

“That’s thirty seconds of quality banter you’re missing out on!” Danny called, but he was already retreating toward the control room.

“On which you’re missing out,” Casey said earnestly into his mic. Danny flipped him off through the glass.

After the show, Casey gingerly stood, wincing as he put weight on his ankle. Danny materialized at his shoulder.

“You all right there, big guy?”

“I’m fine.” Casey winced again on his first step. Danny sighed and reached out; Casey draped his arm around Danny’s shoulders and leaned on him. Danny was warm and solid under his arm, a steady support, miles better than crutches.

They limped back to the office. Danny was in street clothes, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

“Are we on for tonight?” asked Casey, pulling off his suit jacket.

Danny shook his head. “Rebecca called.”

“Oh?”

“She’s cooled down some. I’m going to go over to her place.”

“That’s fair.”

“You need any help getting home?”

Casey made a face, contemplating the trip. “No.”

“See, your mouth says no, but your frown lines say yes.”

“I don’t have frown lines!”

“Keep telling yourself that. C’mon.” Danny jerked his head toward the door. “We’ll get you a cab.”

By the time Casey made it out of the building he was grateful; Danny grabbed his arms when he overbalanced climbing into the cab, half-pushing him back into the seat.

Danny went around the other side, earning a dire glare from their driver, to avoid making Casey slide over.

“You don’t have to ride with me,” said Casey.

Danny shrugged. “I know.”

“I’ve had sprained ankles before.”

“Many, I’d imagine.”

“That’s right.” Casey nodded decisively, turning to stare resolutely forward.

“You know who else has had many sprained ankles?”

“ _Please_ don’t start talking about Tari Phillips.”

“Tari Phillips, one of the finest players to ever grace the sport—”

Danny chatted pleasantly the whole ride to Casey’s condo, and when they got there, he came around to Casey’s side of the cab while Casey was still fiddling with a sticky seat belt.

He gave Casey his hand and Casey pulled mightily, heaving himself up and out of the cab onto his good foot.

Once he was fully upright, he sighed. “Thanks, Danny.”

“No problem. You got it from here?”

And for a moment there was an insane temptation to say _no._ To tell Danny that he needed more help, maybe needed the company.

He realized, with a shock like cold water dumped over his head, that Dana had been _right_ about the metaphorical treehouse. He didn’t want Danny to go to Rebecca’s. He didn’t want Danny and Rebecca to make up. He was single again, and bored, and lonely, and he wanted Danny back where he belonged—sitting at the other end of Casey’s couch and making snide comments about Casey’s taste in beer.

“I got it,” Casey said. He clapped Danny on the shoulder. “Go have a good time.”

Danny gave him a roguish wink. Casey turned away and crossed the sidewalk to his building’s entrance. Behind him, he could hear the car door slam.

 

The next morning Danny came in looking smug. He was also humming, something tuneless but cheerful.

“It was a good night?” asked Casey, despite not particularly wanting to hear the answer.

“It was indeed, my young friend.” Danny dropped into his chair and spun to face Casey. He was smiling. “Rebecca and I made our amends, and then we made love.”

“You can stop talking now.”

“We’re back on track. The slight discord has been resolved.”

“Good,” said Casey, trying to mean it. “I’m glad.”

Danny folded his hands behind his head. “She’s an incredible woman, Casey. She’s got brains, she’s got beauty, she’s got a big heart.”

“She should see a doctor about that last one.”

“You’ll find your Rebecca.” Danny’s face was painfully open and earnest. “I mean it. You’ll find someone who’s got that extra-special spark and sizzle, and you’ll realize that’s who you were waiting for.”

Casey wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole, so instead he said witheringly, “Sizzle?”

“That little touch of heat.”

“Sounds like my future lady is an Angus steak.”

“I’m not ruling that out, but I think it’s far _more_ likely that she’s a former sorority sister who rose through the ranks at NASA.”

“You think I should date an astronaut?”

“I’m just saying, it couldn’t hurt.”

“It could definitely hurt. What if she decides to colonize Mars and I don’t want to go?”

Danny frowned at him. “Of _course_ you wouldn’t go. You love Earth.”

“It’s my home planet, after all.”

“Exactly. Home court advantage.”

“So I’m just saying, if she wanted to go to Mars, I’d be at something of a loss.”

“Casey.” Danny sat up again, the front wheels of his chair coming down with a clack. “Your astronaut wife isn’t going to Mars without you. This much I know.”

“You _know?_ That’s awfully confident for a hypothetical situation involving a Kappa Phi astronaut.”

“Don’t insult the woman before you meet her, Case.”

Casey threw his hands in the air and went back to typing.

“Anyway,” said Danny, “Rebecca and I are going to drive to Connecticut next weekend.”

“What?”

“For her to meet my parents.” Danny tilted his chin back to look up at their monitors; sadly, nothing interesting was happening on them. “It seems like it’s time.”

“Well,” said Casey. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“I hope it goes well.”

“Me, too.”

“Are you going to take her car or yours?”

“Mine.” Danny gave him a funny look. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“Okay.”

Casey tried to imagine the Rydell family home. He’d never been there. He’d met the Rydells a couple of times over the years—at Danny’s graduation, his father oddly disconnected from the proceedings, his mother’s eyes damp with tears; at Danny’s sister’s wedding, where his father had risen to his feet and given an impressively thoughtful speech for a man who called Danny on average once a year, occasionally but not reliably on his birthday.

“Your mom’s going to love her,” Casey said after a minute.

Danny was staring off into the distance. A small, pleased smile crept over his mouth. “I know.”

 

Rebecca said, “Really? Your car?”

“Why not?” asked Dan, feeling defensive.

“It’s a little…” She gestured at it. “Flashy.”

“ _Flashy?_ ”

“Danny, you have to have noticed that it’s a bright red convertible.” She kissed his cheek. “You want your parents to think you’re all grown up, don’t you?”

So Dan ended up hefting their bags into Rebecca’s car, a tooth-grindingly boring mid-sized sedan in dark blue, wondering if Casey had seen this coming.

The drive was fine. Rebecca was talking about a new book she’d read, something called _The Sparrow_ about predestination and divinity. Philosophy had never been Dan’s favorite subject, but Rebecca loved it, and he felt he was coming around to it. Coming to an understanding with it, if not an understanding _of_ it.

“—and the thing is, this religious understanding of fate, the _idea_ of fate, is something I struggle with and I think a lot of secular Jews struggle with—Danny, are you listening?”

“Of course I am,” he said. “The question is why bad things happen to good people, right?”

She leaned back in her seat and frowned out the windshield. “At the root? Yes.”

“It’s hard.” He watched the road winding away in front of him. “Because I’d like to think that there’s purpose, but I can’t. All I can do it hang on to what I have and hope that it’s not taken away from me.”

She darted him a sideways look.

“I love you,” he added. “If that’s not clear.”

She leaned across and kissed him, a quick press of soft lips against his jaw. “You _were_ listening.”

“I always am.”

“Do you think your parents are going to like me?”

“Are you kidding? My mom may roll out a literal red carpet if you don’t watch out.”

She laughed. He loved her laugh; it was such a pretty sound, like windchimes.

They’d stopped for coffee before they left, the wide-open expanse of a Saturday morning when Dan had the whole weekend off in front of them. Rebecca took a sip of hers and started humming along quietly to the radio.

When they got there, Dan’s mother was out the door before he’d turned the engine off, and Rebecca barely got out of the car before his mom was hugging her.

“It’s so nice to meet you!”

“Thank you so much for having me to visit, Mrs. Rydell,” said Rebecca.

“Oh, please, call me Ellen.” His mother smiled brightly as she pressed Rebecca’s hands in hers. “It’s so wonderful to see you after Danny’s told us so much about you.”

And he had. Edited, perhaps, for clarity. But enough that his father, when they walked into the house, looked up and grunted the friendliest greeting Dan had heard in years.

Dan put their things in the guest room while Rebecca chatted with his mother, and when he came back out they’d gotten started on making dinner. His mother kept insisting that Rebecca didn’t need to help, after all, she was a guest, but Rebecca just smiled back and kept chopping peppers.

Dan grabbed a beer from the refrigerator without thinking about it and went to sit in the living room. His father was occupying the couch, so Dan took one of the armchairs.

His father gave him a cool, appraising look. “How was the drive?”

“It was great. Traffic was easy.”

His dad nodded.

The TV was on, quietly flickering. Ken Burns documentary, by the sound of it. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the murmur of voices from the kitchen and the clink of plates.

“It’s going to be a couple of hours until dinner is ready,” said his dad.

Dan nodded.

“Might go work on the bike.”

“Need a hand?” asked Dan, knowing what the answer would be.

His dad shook his head. “Nah. I can take care of it.”

After his dad left, the room seemed bigger. Dan felt smaller.

 

Dinner was great. Rebecca was a gift: she kept the conversation moving. She got Jay to open up about his hopes and dreams, which, granted, mostly revolved around the Yamaha he had in pieces in the garage, but also Dan’s hypothetical niece or nephew from David, who was apparently finally trying with his wife, to Dan’s surprise.

“That’s great!” said Dan, sincerely. “They’re going to be such good parents.”

His dad shot him a quick, sharp look, as if he suspected sarcasm, but then settled back in his chair with a grudging acceptance.

“Oh, of course they are,” said his mother. “Don’t you remember when David volunteered with Big Brothers?”

Dan laughed involuntarily. “I’d forgotten about that!”

“He had that little skinny kid trailing after him—”

Dan smiled and said to Rebecca in an aside, “Somehow he fooled that poor kid into thinking he was _cool,_ but his kid’ll know better.”

His dad’s face got colder.

Rebecca said cheerfully, “You must be excited. I know when my niece was born—” and she was off telling a story about Madilyn (yes, spelled like that) as a newborn that involved some unfortunate diaper-related decisions that had both Ellen and Jay laughing out loud.

She was a _gift_.

After dinner, Jay made noises about going back to the garage, and Rebecca and Ellen and Dan sat around the kitchen table with a bottle of wine. Ellen opened up more in Jay’s absence, telling Rebecca stories about Dan’s childhood. The years from age fourteen to twenty were too painful; none of them would go near that, how Dan had come home drunk and stoned and picked fights. He was being careful, now, to pace himself, not pouring a new glass until his mother had made it well into the next one.

But she told Rebecca about the time Dan broke a neighbor’s car window with a baseball and had run into the backyard to hide, and they hadn’t been able to find him for _hours;_ “I thought I was going to have a heart attack!” And how Dan had always, _always_ loved baseball more than any other sport, even though he could talk your ear off about basketball. How he’d made macaroni art in the first grade and ended up wearing a crown of macaroni home. The disastrous Hebrew school incident where his teacher had had to call her, voice full of patent disbelief, to explain that Danny was _not_ allowed to bring salamanders to the class unless they were in some kind of tank. Rebecca laughed along, making all the correct facial expressions.

It felt strange. Dan couldn’t ever remember having brought home someone that his mother so clearly _liked._ She’d politely tolerated the couple of women Dan had brought home over the years, but then again, those women hadn’t been like Rebecca. No one was like Rebecca.

“So tell me,” said his mother, “how long has it been for you two now?”

Rebecca and Dan spoke at the same time:

“Three months,” said Rebecca.

“Four months,” said Dan.

They looked at each other and laughed awkwardly.

“May to June.” Rebecca ticked them off on her fingers. “June to July. July to August.”

“May, June, July, and August,” said Dan. “Four by my count.”

“But we didn’t start dating until halfway through May.”

“So we only get partial credit?”

Rebecca smiled at him. “That’s right.”

His mother laughed. “That’s Danny for you. He’s always looking for the bright side.”

 _Really?_ thought Dan, startled.

 

That night, sliding between the cool, clean sheets on the bed in the spare room, the mattress springs gave an almighty squeal under Dan. He paused, blinking, and Rebecca’s hand flew to her mouth to stifle laughter.

“I guess we’re not having _that_ kind of night,” she whispered.

“I guess not.”

“I’m not comfortable with your parents—”

“No, no, believe me, we’re on the same page.”

She tumbled into the bed and kissed him, still laughing. He kissed her back.

The house smelled so familiar it ached. It still smelled like it had when Dan had stared up at the ceiling in the dark, wondering what was going to make life feel worth it.

He knew now. He knew: it was Rebecca, her soft hair tickling his nose as she got comfortable, tucked in the crook of his arm.

 

On the drive back, Sunday afternoon, she said, “Would it be okay if I went out to Anthony’s with your friends?”

“What? Sure. Yeah. Why?”

“Natalie invited me the other day and I wasn’t sure—” Rebecca shrugged, turning to look out the window. The sunlight sparkled in her hair, off her dangling earrings. “It seems like you like to keep work friends separate.”

“Rebecca,” he said, reaching out with his free hand to press hers, “of course you’re welcome. You’re an important part of my life. And I think we’re going in a good direction, here.”

“What, towards Manhattan?” But there was a smile playing around her mouth.

“Manhattan. My place. My parents _loved_ you, you know.”

“I know.” She laughed. “Your mother showed me every single picture she has of your cousins’ kids.”

“She’s not a subtle woman.”

“Not very.” Rebecca seemed preoccupied, cupping her fingers over her chin, bracing her elbow on the car door. “Do you want children?”

“I—maybe? I don’t know.”

“You haven’t thought about it?”

“I’ve never really been at a point where it seemed possible.” Dan watched the road intently.

“Steve did,” she said. “It kind of—he put me off of wanting them, for a while. At least with him.”

“I’d be pretty upset if you wanted to have kids with Steve, at this point,” said Dan, aiming for levity and failing.

“I know. I know.”

“We can talk about it.” They came around a curve; there was a stoplight ahead. He tapped the brakes. “Together. When we’re—when we’ve got more things figured out.”

“Okay.” Her fingers drifted over to the radio, and she started fiddling with it until she found a station that was playing classical music.

He missed the Billy Joel song she’d switched away from, but he didn’t say anything about it.

 

A few days later he invited her to Anthony’s.

“We’re going out tonight,” he said, cellphone trapped under his chin as he sped through the tape, mashing the fast-forward button viciously. Stupid pre-Olympic interviews—“Did you want to come with us?”

“Yes!” She sounded excited about it. “And I’ve got some good news. I had a job offer at ABC.”

“Really?”

“I don’t think I’d make jokes about this, Danny.”

“No, you’re right. Congratulations! It can be a celebration.”

“That it can,” she said. There was a smile in her voice.

When he got back into their office, he told Casey, who had been frowning at his computer screen with his hands laced together behind his head.

“Oh,” said Casey, sitting up awkwardly. A stack of papers slid sideways and threatened to crash; Dan grabbed them for him. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“So she must be pretty excited about this job, right?”

“She’s going to take it, she’s been dying to find something to do.”

“Well.” Casey looked determinedly upbeat. “That’s great.”

“So Anthony’s? You’re coming?” It was deeply important that Casey be there. If Rebecca was going to see Dan in his natural environment—if he risked shattering the image he had cultivated in their time alone together of being someone who was _fun_ to be around, and she realized he was just an overgrown kid—it would be vastly preferable to be there with Casey, who would set him up for success. Feed him lines. Say good things about him.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll say good things about me, right?” asked Dan.

Casey gave him a funny look. “As opposed to what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you _nervous?_ She’s been dating you for months, Danny, I don’t think she’d put too much weight on anything I said.”

“But still.”

Casey rolled his eyes. “I’ll say nice things.”

Rebecca came to meet him at the end of the show. She hooked her arm through his, smiling up at him.

“Ready to go?” she said.

“Ready and willing.”

“I’ll bet,” Casey muttered behind him. Danny ignored it, like the mature and rational adult that he was.

The crew moved in a herd across the street to Anthony’s, and Dan peeled away to get Rebecca’s drink. When he found her again, she was sitting across from Casey.

And Casey—there was something odd about Casey. He had a fixed, glassy look on his face, like he’d already had four or five drinks, but he was perfectly sober. He was staring at Rebecca the way someone might look at an IRS auditor.

Rebecca was talking. Her voice was higher than usual. “—so I’m really excited about ABC, and—Danny!” There was a note of relief. “I was just telling Casey about the job.”

He kissed her cheek as he sat down next to her, sliding her wine glass to her. “Merlot?”

“Perfect,” she said, and drank half of it in one go. Dan glanced back and forth between Rebecca and Casey, and had an abrupt vertiginous sensation, as if he’d been catapulted back in time, because he _knew_ that standoff: it was how he’d reacted to meeting _Lisa._

Casey shot a quick look at Dan, pregnant with some kind of misery. Dan stared back at him blankly.

Casey cleared his throat. “So,” he said, “how’d the visit to the ol’ Rydell homestead go?”

Rebecca laughed, too loudly. “Great! I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think Dan’s parents liked me.”

“Of course they did,” said Casey, sensibly. Except his voice was too loud, too. “What’s not to like? You’re a charming, beautiful, successful career woman.”

“Oh, _stop!_ ” she said, getting even _more_ high-pitched, if possible. “The leaves were beautiful, though. They’re starting to turn.”

“Already?”

Dan watched, baffled, as the two of them swerved hard into discussing the weather, of all things. Kim joined them a few minutes later, and some of the tension eased.

They walked to the train afterwards, and she leaned her head against his shoulder once they were onboard and let out a huge sigh. “Oh, God,” she said. “I really embarrassed myself, didn’t I?”

“No!”

“I was just so worried he wouldn’t like me,” she mumbled into his coat collar.

“Why—why wouldn’t he like you?”

“Danny.” She looked up, straight at him. “I left you for a _year._ He’s your _best friend._ If I were him, I’d hate me,” she said, voice trailing off at the end.

“Hey, hey, now.” He rubbed circles between her shoulder blades; she rested her head against him again. “Casey knows things are different this time.”

“He’s divorced, too.” She sighed again. “He probably thinks—I mean, he didn’t cheat on Lisa.”

“You didn’t…”

“I was _separated,_ but I shouldn’t have—I should have…”

“I’m _sure_ he doesn’t think any less of you,” Dan said firmly.

Rebecca leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I hope you’re right.”

“I don’t, and if _anybody_ had a right to be ticked off, it’s me. Right?”

“Because of the lying?” she asked in a small voice.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Are you still angry with me?” she asked, in an even smaller voice.

“What? No.” He kissed the top of her head. “We’re past that. It’s a fence, I’m a horse, I’m over it.”

She laughed, even though she sounded a little watery around the edges.

 

“Last night wasn’t weird,” said Danny. “Right?”

“It wasn’t.” Casey kept his eyes on his computer monitor. _Europe’s performance has been, on the whole—_

“Because if it was weird, I’d know.”

“You would.”

“It seemed a little weird.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Rebecca was under the impression that it was weird.”

“Well, Danny, I hope you assured her that she was mistaken,” said Casey, and he could feel by the end of the sentence that he’d blown his cover with how annoyed he sounded, so he looked up.

Danny was frowning at him.

“What?” snapped Casey.

“ _Are_ you still mad at her?”

Casey looked away fast. “No. It’s fine. You’re both adults.”

“You _are,_ ” said Danny, testing the words. “You’re mad at her—Casey, don’t you understand that we have to get past that? We have to get away from that, or—” and that just hung in the air, a possibility Casey couldn’t stand to examine too closely.

“It’s nothing,” he said brusquely. “It’ll be fine.”

“She’s really important to me.”

“I know.”

“Things are going so much better this time.” It was like Danny was asking him something, a lilt up at the end of the sentence.

“I know they are.”

“She asked if I want kids.”

“ _What?_ ” said Casey, and registered too late how furious he sounded. Danny was visibly taken aback.

“Dude.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, I just—it’s been three months! Can’t she give it some space?”

“I think it was on her mind because my mom brought it up.”

“Oh.” Casey dragged a hand across his eyes. “You should—if you want kids, you should go for it.”

“I don’t know if I do.”

“You’ve got time. I… Lisa and I had Charlie so soon. And it was— _he’s_ great, I love him more than anything. But we should have waited longer.” And then they might have realized, in time to spare Charlie from the fighting.

It was so easy, frighteningly easy, to picture Danny with his own child. Children. Danny would want—he’d want a big family, probably, once he got over it. He’d loved Charlie, he’d doted on Charlie. Every chance he’d gotten.

“Yeah,” said Danny quietly. “I see.”

Danny didn’t say anything else for a long time. Casey was grateful.

 

So of course Rebecca ended up wanting to drag Danny to a friend’s wedding _during their Olympics coverage._

Casey stared at Danny blankly. “I cannot _imagine_ why you think you should go!”

“Casey…” Danny spread his hands. “She _asked_ me.”

“And if she asked you to jump off a bridge?” Casey shook his head tightly. “Never mind. Whatever. It’s up to Dana.”

And Dana, traitorously, said yes and found a replacement: Kelly Kirkpatrick, in the studio for once instead of a remote correspondent.

“Looking good, Kelly,” said Casey, when she dropped into her chair and rolled up to the anchor desk.

She winked at him. “Thanks, Big C.”

“Big C?”

“I’m trying it out.”

“A nickname?”

“Why not? Lots of people have nicknames.”

“It lacks gravitas.”

She burst into merry laughter. “So do you!”

“I do _not_ lack gravitas!” he said, deeply indignant, and then heard laughter from the control booth.

“Sure,” she said. She winked at him again. “And pronouncing it like you’re trying to win a Latin class award helps.”

“ _Hey!_ I’m beginning to remember why I don’t love having you in the studio. You give me less crap when you’re remote.”

“And yet, here I sit.” She gestured broadly at the desk.

He frowned at her. “Here you sit, indeed.”

She mouthed ‘indeed’ at the monitors, and everyone cracked up again.

 

“Are you sure it’s okay that you’re here?” Rebecca asked for the thirtieth time.

“It’s _fine._ I told you, they got coverage.”

“It’s just, it’s the _Olympics…_ ”

“If it weren’t fine, I wouldn’t have come. Relax.” He kissed her hair, though he had to be careful. It was already styled. She ran a hand over it anxiously, checking to make sure it was undisturbed. There was a hush, and they all turned to look.

Her college roommate beamed on her way to the flower-wreathed chuppah. The dress was flowing and lovely, heavy folds of stark white satin draped around her as she took each step.

Dan had been to a handful of weddings; he wasn’t expecting the sharp rush of feeling when the rabbi got to the Sheva Brachot. The Hebrew washed over him like a wave.

“—blessed are You, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe, who created joy and gladness, groom and bride, mirth, song, delight and rejoicing, love and harmony and peace and companionship.”

His eyes were wet, he thought, and he blinked hard to clear them.

After the ceremony they got up and Rebecca said, hushed, “How beautiful.”

Dan nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak yet.

 

They were in the car—Rebecca’s car again, and she drove this time—on their way home, when Rebecca said, “I don’t think I want kids.”

“That’s okay,” said Dan immediately. “That’s not a deal-breaker for me.” And he found that it was, if anything, a slight relief; the idea of trying to raise _children_ when he had so much difficulty raising _himself,_ shaping _himself,_ was daunting. More than daunting.

“I _love_ my job.” She was worrying at a hangnail with her teeth. She was going to ruin that manicure. “I don’t want to take time off. I don’t want to get behind, not again.”

“That’s fine.”

“I know you understand.”

He made a vague assenting noise, watching her.

“I mean, look at you,” she said, almost under her breath. “You’re at work _all_ the time.”

“Hey,” he said, stung. “I make time for you.”

“ _Do_ you?”

“I did today!” He waved around the car. “I took time off, _for you,_ during the _Olympics!_ ”

“God, I know! I know, Danny.” She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

“So what _is_ this? What’s this _about?_ ”

“I don’t know!” she yelled. They were both stunned into silence.

“I want to marry you,” said Dan.

She put on the signal and pulled over, and then she put her head down, resting it against the steering wheel. Dan realized, watching her shoulders heave, that she was crying.

“You won’t even let me _in,_ ” she said, “and you want to _marry_ me?”

“Let you—in? To what? Where?”

“Danny!” She shook her head without lifting it. “I didn’t even know you had a _brother_ who _died_ until six months after I left! Steve was talking about you and he told me and I didn’t even know.”

“Oh,” said Dan.

“I didn’t know your sister’s _name_ until your mother told me.”

“I don’t—I don’t talk about them much.”

“You’ve never said Sam’s name to me. Not once.”

“That’s not true,” he said, desperately trying to remember whether it was.

She clenched her fists around the steering wheel. “You don’t want me to _know_ you. You want me to see, see this slick, smooth, _happy_ guy, and that’s who you want me to love, that’s who you want me to marry. Not _you._ Nobody gets _you_ but Casey.”

“Rebecca—”

“Am I wrong?” She finally lifted her head, and he wished immediately that she hadn’t. Her eyes were burning like coals, tear tracks down her cheeks.

“You’re wrong,” he said, wishing he was more certain.

“You’ll say yes to anything I say, won’t you? You’d say yes to kids, you’d say yes to no kids. You’d say yes to a wedding or if I said I wanted to live in sin forever. You’d do anything for me except work less, wouldn’t you? That’s the line. That’s where you’d draw the line.”

“I don’t…” His voice failed him. “Do you _want_ me to work less?”

“Yes!” she yelled. “You’re at that show every _day!_ It’s all you talk about. The show, Casey, Casey, the show. I thought it would get better when he and Dana broke up but it _didn’t,_ and that was what it was like the _first_ time around, too. I felt like I knew _them_ better than I knew _you._ ”

He was breathless at her anger. “Rebecca. I’ll, I’ll do… I’ll change…” but he faltered.

“Don’t promise what you can’t give me.” Her voice was flat and leaden. She restarted the car. “I’ll drop you off at your place.”

“You aren’t—” He stared at her. “You can’t be _dumping_ me.”

“I’m not, Danny.” She actually laughed. It was cold and awful. “You’re dumping me. I’m just saving us some time.”

 

“Hello?”

Casey’s voice was deep and comfortingly familiar on the phone.

“Rebecca dumped me,” said Dan. He thought he kept his voice surprisingly level.

“Damn.” Casey sounded genuinely shocked. “Are you—are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“You want me to come over?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there. Just—hang on a couple minutes, okay? I’ll be there.”

“Okay.”

 

Dan remembered that night very vaguely in the future. Casey brought the bottle of whiskey from _his_ break-up, still half-full, and they drank until all Dan had left was flashes: Casey rubbing the back of his neck, telling him to put his head down, telling him to breathe. Dan remembered crying, which sucked, and he remembered Casey saying very intensely, _It’s going to be okay. It’ll be a while. But it’s going to be okay._

 

Casey remembered it differently. He remembered Danny saying, “Did you think she was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dana. Did you think she was, was the love of your life?”

“I don’t know,” said Casey. “I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Didn’t—Case. You have known her for _twenty years._ ”

“Little bit less.”

“Twenty years!”

“Okay.”

“And you didn’t, during all of this, this _wooing_ her, stop to think whether she was the one?”

“I don’t really believe in the one.”

“What?”

“I think there are a lot of people any person could be compatible with. Maybe they meet them, maybe they don’t.” He shrugged. “Maybe I have to believe that, after the divorce.”

“That’s…” Danny trailed off. “Okay.”

Danny ended up falling asleep lying sideways on the couch, face mashed into the throw pillow, feet in Casey’s lap. Casey watched his face for a while before he realized what he was doing.

He looked down; he had his hand resting on Danny’s leg. Benign enough. Just his palm on Danny’s shin, warm through the fabric of Danny’s sweatpants.

His cheeks went hot before he could figure out why, and then he knew why in a blinding flash of upsetting and inevitable enlightenment, and he groaned and put his free hand to his face.

“Danny,” he said, shaking Danny’s leg gently. “Dan.”

“Hm?” Danny looked up at him blearily.

“You gotta get to bed. You hate the couch.”

“Okay,” said Danny, agreeably enough, and let Casey steer him towards the bedroom.

Casey didn’t go in after him. He went back out to the couch, sat down hard on it—Danny had bought an extra-long couch. He’d said some bullshit reason. Casey had just assumed at the time it was so that Casey could sleep comfortably on it. Casey hadn’t questioned whether that was a normal thing to do.

In retrospect, there were a lot of things Casey had never questioned, and had only recently begun to poke with a stick, without even admitting to himself quite what he was thinking about. Submerged considerations of topics such as whether, in fact, it _had_ been vaguely gay of Dan to sing him Happy Birthday on air. And how he felt about that.

 _Goddamn it,_ he thought, with a nearly hysterical edge. _Now? Thirty-five years into my life,_ now?

It was bad timing. (It wasn’t the worst. They were both—no. He shouldn’t—Danny had been _crying_ in front of him not two hours before. He shouldn’t think about it. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.)

Casey stretched out on the couch. The pillow Danny had just abandoned was the one that came to hand. It smelled like Danny, like Danny’s hair. Casey shifted uncomfortably, trying to ignore the combination of terror and excitement.

He did eventually manage to fall asleep, into nonsensical and turbulent dreams.

 

After the breakup, Dan was tired. He noticed it in strange ways and at strange times—before they went on air, his eyelids would feel heavy, leaden.

“This doesn’t feel like I expected it to,” he said to Abby, lying back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. He twisted his neck to look at her. “Why doesn’t it?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m tired of thinking. I have to do a lot of it. I’d rather just be a pretty talking head of sports.”

“Really?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I thought you enjoyed your job.”

“I do.”

“And your colleagues.”

“I do.”

“Yet you’re feeling too tired to do your job the way you’d like to.”

“That is correct.”

“We’ve talked before about the symptoms of depression.”

“Yeah.”

“So what does this make you think of?”

He made a face at the ceiling. “You think I’m depressed about Rebecca?”

“I think you’re telling me you’re experiencing an unusual decrease in energy right around the time you have a major life stressor, and you’re also having more trouble concentrating and you’re enjoying your work less.”

“I guess I could be.”

“Do you think you are?”

He sighed, popping the joints in his fingers. “Yeah.”

“In the past, you haven’t wanted to try medication.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“Would it help me get my groove back?”

“It might. There’s no way to know for sure without trying.”

“Okay, doc. Hit me with it.”

She smiled. “It’s not that simple. You need to see a prescriber. A psychiatrist or your regular doctor.”

“I don’t want to talk to my regular doctor about this.”

“Then a psychiatrist it is. I know a guy. You want to start there?”

“Sure.”

 

_“—and Sandra is on Xanax now and she’s telling everyone it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread,” said Danny’s mother, rolling her eyes._

_“Well, that’s Sandra.” His dad reached for the butter. “She never met a problem she couldn’t have hysterics about.”_

_“I just don’t know what she has to complain about. She’s got a great house, a good husband, two good kids.”_

_“She’s just got to make something out of nothing.” His dad snorted and jerked a thumb at Danny. “Like our little soap opera star over here.”_

_Danny set his jaw. He wasn’t going react. He was sixteen years old, he didn’t need to—_

_“Oh, don’t be mean, Jay.” His mom patted Danny’s arm briskly. “He’s a little sensitive at his age. Who isn’t?”_

_“I wasn’t.”_

_“I’m sure I remember stories from your mother that contradict that.”_

_“You remember wrong.”_

 

“Think I’m going to try meds,” said Dan to Casey, aiming for casual.

“Meds?” Casey dribbled the ball, squinting up at the basket.

“Antidepressants.”

“Oh.” Casey paused and then made the shot. It bounced off the backboard and went nowhere near the net.

“Abby suggested it.”

“Yeah?”

“She thinks I’m depressed about Rebecca.”

“Are you?” Casey passed him the ball. He lined up for his shot.

“Probably.”

“Then meds probably aren’t such a bad idea.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dan landed that shot.

“You can do better.” Casey caught the ball with one big, open hand. It was unfair; he had enormous hands.

“You have gorilla hands,” muttered Dan. “Stop catching the ball like you’re flypaper.”

“That would make the ball a fly.”

“I come up with my metaphors on the spur of the moment. Not all of them are gold.”

“You’re telling me.”

“What do you mean, I can do better? I’m playing fine today.”

Casey rolled his eyes. There were sweat stains all over his cut-out t-shirt. He was going to need to wring that thing out later. “I meant you can do better than Rebecca.”

“Oh.” Dan sighed. “Thanks, but I’m not convinced that’s true.”

“She didn’t understand you.”

“Sometimes I think she understood me too well.” Dan sank another shot.

“That doesn’t sound right.”

“She thought I was too obsessed with my work.”

“You’re _dedicated._ That’s different.”

“My entire life revolves around work, Casey. I spend all my time there. The time I don’t spend there, I spend with people _from_ there, such as yourself.”

“You have other friends.”

“Name three.”

“David Duval.”

“While it pains me to admit this, we are not _friends,_ per se, we are guys who happen to sometimes golf together.”

“Bobby from the rink.”

“Bobby and I have beer, like, once a month.”

“That’s not bad.”

“Okay.”

“Nat from the dry cleaner’s.”

“All we do is go to the batting cage and she cleans my clock, every time.”

“That’s what friendship is all about.”

“Getting my ass kicked at my favorite sport?”

“Yes.”

“Someday I’m going to join a recreational softball team for real.”

“But until that day comes, Nat can keep kicking your ass.”

“She can indeed.”

“Trixie.”

“Trixie is an ex. She doesn’t count as a friend.”

“She could.”

“She doesn’t.”

“You see her regularly. You talk about your lives.”

“I’ve seen her naked.”

“You’ve seen _me_ naked,” said Casey, and then turned several shades of purple.

“Yes,” said Dan, graciously not laughing at Casey, “but she and I have never shared a Wardrobe department, nor do she and I play sports, nor did she ever bet me a hundred bucks—”

“I still can’t believe you did that, it was the _Bellagio_ —”

“—but the point is, Trixie, while a delightful person, is nonetheless not someone I can comfortably class as a friend.”

“Howard?” said Casey uncertainly.

“Oh.” Dan wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of one hand. His hair was sticking to the skin and it was uncomfortable. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought about him, but I guess he counts. Does he count? I met him in the building.”

“But you don’t work together.” Casey was looking at Dan with a weird intensity. “And you hang out.”

“Every once in a while, yeah.”

“Is he still seeing Scott?”

“Last time I checked.” Dan shrugged. “They bought a _condo_ together, I think in Manhattan that’s like getting married by the Pope in medieval Europe. They’re together now until one of them dies.”

“That’s cool.” Casey was still staring at him.

“Are you okay?” Dan gestured at his own face. “You look like you have a headache or something.”

Casey looked away, shaking his head. He dribbled the ball a couple more times. “Nah. It’s fine.”

“So, my tally of non-work-related friends aside, I’m going to try meds and we’ll see how it goes. I saw the shrink yesterday. Picking up my meds today, I think, and then I’ll start tonight.”

“Cool.”

“He says it could take a while before we know if they’re working.”

“Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

 

Danny called Casey the next morning.

“Dude,” said Casey, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “you realize we work together. You’re going to see me in three hours.”

“I do not like this medication.”

“Uh. You should probably talk to your shrink about it?”

“I couldn’t _sleep,”_ said Danny plaintively. “I couldn’t sleep and my stomach’s going crazy and I can’t stop _sweating._ ”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Pity me, damn it!”

“I do!”

“Well, then.” Danny seemed at a loss. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

“Danny. I will see you at work. Is there anything you want me to bring?”

“Bring?”

“Yeah, like, I don’t know, chicken soup or whatever.”

“You’d bring me chicken soup.” Danny sounded dubious.

“I don’t know what the cure is for side effects, okay? I’m trying.”

“I get that.”

“Sprite? I like Sprite when my stomach’s upset.”

“Uh. Yeah. Sprite—Sprite would be good.”

“Okay. There you go. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.” Casey hung up and rolled back over to sleep again.

He remembered the Sprite on his way in, even though he had to park hastily at a bad angle because it occurred to him belatedly as he drove by the bodega. He went ahead and got ginger ale and soda crackers while he was at it, and then grabbed some fresh oranges (vitamin C was good for something, right?) and a roll of Tums and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

When he got in, Danny was sitting at his desk, glaring at his computer. He _did_ look crappy.

“Sprite?” Casey held out the bottle.

Danny looked up and cracked a real smile. “You did it?”

“I did. Also…” Casey handed over the convenience store bag. “I wasn’t sure what else to get.”

Danny laughed reluctantly, taking the bag. “I feel like I’m being coddled.”

“Hey, being sick sucks.”

“I’m not sick, exactly. And I called the shrink’s office. They said this is normal and should get better in a couple of days.”

“Well, that blows.”

“True enough.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry you feel like crap.” Casey shrugged. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

When Casey came back from getting the numbers out of Cleveland later, Danny was sitting at his desk, upright, looking much perkier and eating an orange.

He kept licking the juice off his fingers. Casey’s stomach lurched. _Christ,_ he thought, _I wish Tums fixed this._

 

The weather was turning. Danny was over the first round of side effects from his medication and seemed, if Casey were to be asked for his opinion, to be starting to show some positive signs. He was smiling more. He was not letting his chin get that awful five o’clock shadow it got when he was really depressed. Casey was watching Danny for Danny’s own good, probably, if anyone had asked, which they didn’t.

Which just made Casey all the more vividly aware that it wasn’t _strange_ for him to be following Danny with his eyes, following him sometimes from room to room, nursing the kind of horrible, overwhelming crush he hadn’t had on anyone in over a decade.

A woman he vaguely recognized turned to him in the elevator and said, “Hey, aren’t you Casey McCall?”

“I am,” he allowed.

She laughed. She was pretty, long blonde hair, a neat black skirt suit. “I’m Jeanine.”

It turned out Jeanine worked for one of the other companies in the building. She was some kind of management, although he didn’t quite understand her job. Jeanine liked the Yankees, and he was halfway through explaining to her why that was fundamentally morally wrong when the elevator pinged on her floor.

She said, smiling, “Give me a call,” and passed him her card. Her number was written on the back in ballpoint pen.

He stared at it for a while after getting in to the office. This was exactly the kind of opportunity he should seize. Jeanine had seemed funny in the brief elevator ride. She was definitely sexy. She liked him, as evidenced by the number.

But it wasn’t—he felt a sick, helpless giddiness, staring at that card. It wasn’t what he _wanted_ to do, and he was tired of doing this to himself.

 _I should say something,_ he thought. He’d worked himself almost up to it when Danny came in, whistling.

He hadn’t whistled in—weeks, months, who knew? Danny looked years younger without the grim lines of regret around his mouth, those parentheticals bracketing his expressive lips. Danny caught Casey looking and grinned at him, winking roguishly.

 _Oh, shit,_ thought Casey. Because this wasn’t a crush, was it. It felt like one, but he’d learned a thing or two from the Dana debacle, and he knew things about himself he hadn’t known then. Like that he was a coward, and a bad kisser, a bad date. Someone who didn’t pay enough attention to notice when he was fucking up.

It wasn’t a _crush._ You didn’t get a crush on someone after more than a decade of watching them write, eyeing them sidelong as they laughed, listening to them breathe in hotel rooms at night. More of a—more of a _revelation._ Of sorts.

“Hey,” said Casey, “you want to come watch Sports Center with me tonight and make fun of Dan Patrick’s face?”

Danny laughed aloud. “Sure.”

 

Beers at Casey’s, watching sports, had been a good idea, and Dan said as much to him on a commercial break. Britney Spears was smiling at him from the television; she still seemed frighteningly young.

“Yeah,” said Casey. “I thought we could use a break.”

“A break from what?”

“ _Not_ drinking beer and watching sports?”

“Fair enough, my friend. Fair enough.”

They sat in comfortable, contented silence for a few minutes after the game, letting the vague post-game patter wash over them, and then Casey hit the mute button. Dan looked over at him in surprise.

Casey pursed his lips. “I keep thinking about what you said.”

“What did I say? It was probably something superbly witty.”

“No, you were—you said there was no point to a relationship if you couldn’t be comfortable with someone. If they didn’t know you.”

“That sounds about right.”

“I wasn’t comfortable with Dana. Not like that. We were comfortable, I guess, when we were friends, but I don’t think—we weren’t good together. As a couple.”

Dan sighed. “Well, there you go.” He shifted, getting more settled into the couch. “There are times when it seems like it _should_ be comfortable, and it just isn’t.”

“I’m comfortable with you,” said Casey quietly.

Dan laughed into the neck of his beer bottle. “Yeah, but not like _that._ ”

There was a silence that took on a breathless quality.

Dan looked up. Casey was staring at him.

“Not like—” Dan frowned. “You don’t want to _date_ me,” he said, testing out the words.

Casey’s cheeks went a dull red, color flushing through them like a spontaneous sunburn.

“No,” said Dan. “That’s—that can’t be right.”

Casey looked down at his hands. “I know.”

“You’re—”

“Maybe.”

“But,” said Dan. His mind was empty. He couldn’t think of any words. His mouth, predictably yet unfortunately, kept going. “No, no, come on. Come here.”

“What?” Casey looked up, startled, hunted.

“Come here. Kiss me. You’ll see, it’ll be like—like kissing your brother.”

“I’m an only child,” said Casey. His cheeks were even redder. “I don’t have a brother.”

“No,” said Dan. “I mean it. Come on, kiss me, get it over with.”

 _“Danny.”_ Casey sounded agonized.

Dan set down his beer bottle and waved Casey over. “C’mere.”

Casey stared at him like he’d grown a second head, but he set down his bottle on the coffee table unsteadily, without looking at it. It clanked against the glass.

“Are you _sure?_ ” said Casey.

“Yeah, here. You’ve just—it’s losing Dana that’s got your head in a weird place. Try it on and you’ll see.”

Casey licked his lips and wiped his palms on his pants, and then he scooted down the couch cushion between them. Dan had time to think _this is how Elisa must have felt at the junior prom,_ and then Casey was kissing him.

Casey held almost still at first, lips pressed to Dan’s. That wouldn’t do. He’d gotten more tongue from Elisa. Dan tilted his head and parted his lips, and Casey gasped and followed him.

Something happened. It was like Dan’s brain was a circuit board and someone had poured what was left of his beer on it. Sparking, shocking: his body jerked a little bit, out of his control. The thing he felt was a recognizable feeling, identifiable, he’d felt it before, that first summer when he’d always sat as close to Casey as he could. When he’d tried so hard to be _near_ Casey, without wondering _why,_ or maybe trying very hard not to think about why. And all the years in between, sitting close, talking to each other well inside any kind of normal personal bubble.

Only this was that feeling with the intensity ramped up about a thousand times. This was—he was clutching Casey’s shoulders, Casey was shaking, he was sucking in ragged breaths, Casey moaning almost inaudibly but the vibrations reverberating clear through him. He was _hard_ and he had been on roller coasters that filled him with less adrenaline than this. He wanted to _fuck_ Casey, he wanted to fuck him through the _couch,_ he wanted—

Dan tore away his mouth from Casey’s.

“Danny,” said Casey, and it was just a breath, not quite out loud.

Dan shifted backwards. “I have to—” he said. “I need—” and he got up and grabbed his windbreaker and he was _gone,_ out the door, almost running.

 

_When Dan was nineteen that first summer, he was covering the local baseball team, and he got to talking with the pitcher. Later on, it would occur to him that there was a particular sophomoric humor to that, but at the time all he knew was that this guy was tall and good-looking, sandy-haired with an easy smile._

_In the locker room, after everyone else had gone, the guy had looked at him with those sparkling eyes and said, “Hey, uh,” and then put his hand on Dan’s dick. Dan had gone with it, and they’d jerked each other off. It hadn’t taken long—just a couple of minutes—and afterwards the guy got into the shower and Dan left and they didn’t talk about it again._

_It was the kind of thing guys did sometimes._

 

“Natalie,” said Dan. “Do I seem gay to you?”

“Not particularly, but I’ve been wrong before,” she said, looking up from her computer. “Why do you ask?”

“Something weird happened.”

“Something weird.”

“Yes.”

She folded her hands. “You realize you’re going to need to expand on that a little bit for me to follow.”

He paced restlessly next to her workstation. “You have to understand that Casey’s been in a strange place.”

“We’re all in a strange place, Dan, we work here.”

“I mean a strange mental place. I mean ever since he and Dana broke up.”

“All right, I’ll allow it.”

“Last night—” Dan took a deep breath and stopped pacing long enough to rub his cheeks with his hands. “Last night he kissed me.”

“Hm,” said Natalie.

“Hm? I come to you with this and you give me _hm?_ ”

“He kissed you and you’re worried that made you gay?”

“No, he kissed me and I kissed _back_ and I’m worried _that_ makes me gay.”

“Now, see, _that’s_ a reasonable concern,” said Natalie.

“It’s insane!”

“I think if you kissed back it’s entirely rational to consider the idea that you might be at least partially gay.”

“I meant it’s insane that I _did!_ And furthermore,” he added, holding up one finger, “‘partially gay’ isn’t even a thing. That’s bisexual.”

“Maybe for _you_ it is.”

“I don’t know why I came to you for advice.” He put one hand on his forehead. “You’re mad as a hatter.”

“You know they went mad because of mercury exposure? Occupational hazard. Pre-OSHA.”

“Natalie!” he shouted. “Focus.”

“You were the one who brought hatters into it!”

“I need to lie down.”

“Did you like it?”

“What?”

“Kissing Casey.”

He rolled his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“Would you do it again?”

“I don’t—maybe—I—”

“Do you want to have sex with him?”

“Young lady, I, I don’t know who raised you—”

“Because if you want to have sex with him, you’re probably at least a little bit gay.” She rolled her eyes. “ _Bisexual._ Whatever.”

“Natalie!” He was trying to decide whether to give up being scandalized by her or not.

“Have you had sex with men before?”

“That is not the point!”

She looked at him with a tender, remorseless pity. “Oh, Daniel. It’s _exactly_ the point.”

“Sometimes guys—you know what, I need to find an elevator shaft and fling myself down it, thanks.”

“He just kissed you? Wham, bam, thank you Dan?”

“Wh—no.” He put his hands to his ears, wishing he could retroactively muffle that. “He was—we were watching the game, and then—”

“It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to _tell_ you! Of course it’s weird!”

“I mean for Casey.” She jerked her chin toward the door, the rest of the office. “He spent _how_ long pining over Dana? And he just, what, _tells_ you he has a thing for you?”

“He didn’t say that in so many words—”

“Wait, what _did_ he say? Does he have a thing for you, or is he gearing up for European Man-Kissing Semi-Finals?”

“He said he was… comfortable. With me. In a… specific sense.”

“Comfortable?” She sounded vaguely disapproving.

“It was something we’d talked about. Before.”

“And he’s comfortable with you.”

“Apparently.”

“Dan.” Natalie was staring at him with narrowed eyes, like a hound on a scent. “Are _you_ secretly in love with Casey?”

“I am not your next project!”

“You should be _somebody’s_ project, you’re kind of a mess.”

“I know that! If I’m anyone’s project it’s Abby. I’m Abby’s? I’m not sure how the grammar works on this but you get the point.”

“Oh.” Natalie considered this. “Have you, by any chance, talked to her about this yet?”

“No.”

“You might want to do that.”

“I wanted a preliminary opinion.”

“A what?”

“Like a first pass. A read on a rough draft.”

“A rough draft of your sexual identity crisis.”

“Yes.”

“Dan.”

“What?”

“Call Abby.”

“You know, for one of my closest friends, you’re very little help!” he called over his shoulder as he left.

“You’re demented!” she shouted back. “And partially gay!”

 

The hard part was that he would _have_ to occupy the same space as Casey at some point during the day. And he had no idea what he was going to do about that.

Casey had left him fifteen voicemails. Nine on his landline, six on his cell. He’d studiously ignored the ones on his cell, but he’d been in the apartment for the landline calls, and he’d gotten to listen to Casey sucking in stuttering breaths and saying, “Danny, I, you know—look, just call me,” and later, “I need to know we’re still friends,” and then, “I’m _sorry,_ is that what you need to hear? I just—I needed to know.” Once, after some silence, “Danny, pick up, okay? Just pick up.” Once, damningly, “I _know_ you felt—no, you know what, just call me.”

On the last one Casey said in a low, subdued voice, “I know that came out of left field for you. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I wanted you to know. I wanted to know if—anyway. I’m sorry. I don’t want this to fuck things up.”

 _I know you felt_ —

Dan hid in a store room and called Abby on his cellphone. “It’s _such_ an emergency,” he said despairingly to her voicemail. “ _Please_ call me.” And eight minutes later, when he calculated her previous client had been out of the room for a solid three minutes, she did.

“What is it, Danny?”

The whole thing spilled out, as fast as he could tell it, because he knew she’d get ticked if this cut time from her next client. At the end of it she paused.

“Wow,” she said. “That’s a lot.”

“It is!”

“How do you feel about it?”

“How do I—how…” He trailed off. “I don’t _know._ ”

“I think you do.”

“With all due respect, what are you, psychic? You think you know what I’m feeling?”

“I think _you_ know what you’re feeling, better than I do. I think you called me because you want to tell you that whatever you’re feeling is okay. And here’s the kicker, Danny. It is.”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re feeling is okay. There’s no wrong way to feel. What you choose to _do_ with it—yeah, there are right and wrong answers there. Care to guess what some of those are?”

“Uh. Wrong would be trying to make somebody else feel bad just because I’m feeling… things.”

“Yes.”

“Right would be…” He exhaled, long and glumly, between his teeth. “Being open and honest about what I’m feeling. Even if I think it’s unacceptable.”

“Look at you. Soon you won’t need me. The student will surpass the teacher.”

“Abby, that’s a tall order.”

“Being open and honest?”

“Yeah.”

“I never told you therapy was going to be a piece of cake.”

“I kind of wish you had.”

“Yeah, but then you’d feel lied to now, wouldn’t you?”

“I definitely would.”

“Are you hiding from Casey?”

He laughed dryly. “However did you guess?”

“I have _met_ you. Get your butt back in there and show yourself what you can do when you’re living in Wise Mind.”

“ _Ugh,_ ” he said to her with great feeling.

“I have to go, Danny, it’s time for my next appointment.”

“Are they more messed up than me?”

“Do I ever comment on that?”

“No.”

“Do you think I’m going to start now?”

“Not really, but it was worth a shot.”

“Get back in the game, Danny. It’s not over yet.” Abby hung up.

Dan stared at the phone for a minute before putting it in his pocket.

 

Casey was sitting in the room for the noon rundown, waiting for Danny. The clock was ticking; Dana was glaring at it. Danny was two and a half minutes late, which was acceptable. Much longer, and it wouldn’t be anymore. He hadn’t seen Danny yet that morning, but other people had, so he was definitely in the building and _definitely_ avoiding Casey, which sucked. There was no other word for it: it sucked.

The door banged open and Danny rushed in, clutching a brown paper bag. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, out of breath.

Dana said tartly, “So good of you to join us, Mr. Rydell.”

“I got Danishes.” And true to his word, he began distributing Danishes around the table, eliciting cries of delight.

“You got two _dozen_ Danishes,” said Casey in amazement.

“I did. I had a moment. We’ll call it a moment of realization.”

“Yeah?” Casey had no idea what to make of that.

“A moment where I was standing in front of the Danish guy and realized I was going to be late and if I wanted to curry favor I should return bearing many pastries.”

Dana said, “Try just not being late next time,” but the effect was blunted given that she was saying it through a mouthful of a blueberry Danish she was splitting with Natalie. Danny smiled winsomely at her, and she rolled her eyes again.

The noon rundown was rendered a little less productive than usual by the fact that Casey and Danny hadn’t coordinated ahead of time, but it was fine.

After the meeting, Danny still had half a dozen Danishes left, and Casey found himself staring blankly at the bag of them tucked under Danny’s arm as Danny led them back to their office. Head held high, as if nothing was out of the ordinary, nothing to see here, just Danny in his favorite leather jacket and Casey in his Michigan sweatshirt, a normal day, a totally normal day.

They got into the office and as the door closed behind Casey, he found himself saying, “ _Please_ tell me your plan isn’t to buy my silence with baked goods.”

“No.” Danny held out the bag. “You want another one anyway?”

“…Yeah.”

Casey dug around and found another of the raspberry ones. He liked those best.

“My _plan,_ ” said Danny, kicking up his feet on the sofa, “is to discuss things. Discuss them in a fashion that is open and honest. Blending the emotional mind with the rational mind to produce the Wise Mind, as in the teachings of Marsha Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, of which Abby is a pretty big proponent.”

“Danny, if we’re being open and honest, I kind of want to murder you right now.”

Danny set down the bag on the floor and drew his knees up, folding his hands loosely across his stomach. “I was very surprised yesterday.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Casey found himself with a queasy, hollow pit in his stomach.

“Surprised and, to no small extent, alarmed, because this required thinking about our partnership in a new light.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I talked to Natalie today.”

“Oh, God.” Casey let his forehead fall to hit his desk, and then gently rapped it on the desk a few more times.

“She told me to talk to Abby, which I did.”

“Okay,” said Casey, muffled somewhat by the pile of papers he’d buried his face in.

“I want to know.”

Casey lifted his head. Danny was staring right at him. It was hard to stand the scrutiny, but he felt that it was important, and he returned Danny’s stare.

“What is this?” said Danny quietly. “What happens with this, in your perfect world?”

Casey couldn’t stop himself from barking out a harsh laugh. “In my _perfect_ world? In my perfect world, Jerry Falwell falls into the Wild Africa exhibit at the zoo and gets eaten by a pack of hyenas, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell gets repealed and the five-star generals all dance with each other at the next Armed Forces Ball, everyone realizes they’ve been living with totally unnecessary homophobic baggage, and then—” He stopped and sucked in a breath. “Then you and I go snorkeling in the Caribbean.”

“Snorkeling,” said Danny.

“You know. Crystal blue waters, exotic fish. Bungalows with sheer curtains fluttering in the wind and panoramic views of picaresque volcanos.”

“Have you been reading a travel brochure? Who knew you had a poetic streak? Exotic _fish,_ Casey.”

“It seemed like a romantic activity suggestion!”

“You have _got_ to stop planning dates. You’re no good at it.”

Casey flung up his arms. “Fine! In _your_ perfect world, what happens next?”

Danny regarded him levelly. “First off, I’m not going snorkeling with you. You can go snorkeling. I’ll surf.”

“I can surf!”

“You can fall off a surfboard. I’ve seen you.”

“You’re _insufferable,_ ” Casey said.

“We can’t go snorkeling,” said Danny. “You know that, right?”

“What, you have a problem with snorkels?”

“No—well, I’m not great at—but that’s not the point, Casey.”

“So what _is_ the point?”

“There are several points.”

“You said point in the singular.”

“Look, do you want to hear this or not? Because I was awake for the vast majority of last night thinking about it.”

“Fine. I’ll take them in, what, list format?”

“Sure. First point: we’re not A-list but we _are_ celebrities. I mean, we have _publicists._ ”

Casey looked away, jaw clenching.

“And you and I both know what it would do to our careers if it got out.”

“Which is why you talked to Natalie, right?” said Casey, hearing himself get snide and hating it.

“I talked to Natalie because, for all that she’s completely insane, she’s also got a sort of wisdom about her.”

“Whatever.”

“Second point: we’re friends now. We’re really good friends.”

“ _Wow_ , that’s a lame let-down. ‘I don’t want to ruin the friendship,’” muttered Casey mockingly. “You can just _say_ you’re—”

“Shut up.” Danny pointed at him. Casey shut up. “Third point: have you ever slept with a guy?”

Casey stared at him blankly, but Danny just kept staring back, and it was rapidly becoming clear that Danny was _expecting him to answer that._

“No,” he finally got out with difficulty. “Nobody—no.”

“So who even _knows_ what happens if you try.”

“I’m _pretty sure about that part,_ Danny,” said Casey through gritted teeth.

“You were pretty sure about Dana.” Danny leaned back deeper into the couch, lacing his fingers together over his stomach, watching Casey with the impersonal curiosity of an anthropologist.

Casey flinched. “Ouch.”

“What makes this different? Besides blind optimism?”

“Danny,” said Casey through the growing anger and embarrassment. “If you aren’t _interested,_ you—”

Danny spread his arms out. “Do I _sound_ not _interested_ to you?”

Casey stilled. “Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh._ I’m not going through this as a _thought exercise,_ okay, Case?” Danny let out a shuddering sigh and palmed his face. “I wasn’t kidding. I didn’t sleep a whole lot. It’s like my brain’s on a merry-go-round and it just keeps going.”

“Have you?” asked Casey. “With a guy?”

“I didn’t…” Danny trailed off. “A couple times. I told myself all guys do it,” he said, in a very low voice. “I told myself it was just a dude thing. A sports thing.”

“Huh,” said Casey, who had wavered between thinking that Danny might have been sleeping with men the whole time, merrily sexually active with men on the sly, and thinking that surely Danny had never even contemplated the idea in his life. The possibility of in-between ground had not occurred to him.

“It’s not a good idea.” Danny was almost whispering. “I mean, you can _tell_ that. It’s not a good idea. We’re not good at secrets. Somebody’s going to figure it out, and our goose will be cooked.”

“I know.” Casey’s tongue felt thick in his mouth. This was somehow worse than outright rejection. Which was another thing this had in common with the Dana situation.

Danny was staring off, through the glass, into the bullpen. “So I don’t think we should.”

“You would, though,” said Casey. “Just to be clear. If it were—all things being equal. You’d go snorkeling with me.”

“Yeah.” Danny rubbed at his eye, sighing. “Yeah. I hadn’t… I hadn’t really thought about it. Before. But I think I would.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s—this is pretty recent for you, right?”

“Pretty recent,” said Casey, not sure whether that was a lie.

“So it’ll blow over,” said Danny, half-pleading. “It’ll be weird for a little while and then things will get back to normal.”

“Probably.”

“You’ve seen me drunk.” Danny sounded like he was arguing with someone. Who, Casey couldn’t be sure, because Casey sure as hell wasn’t arguing back. “You’ve watched me cut my toenails in this very office. You saw me cry that time a skateboarder clipped my shin.”

“Yeah.”

“So something will happen again and you’ll realize I’m a dweeb and it’ll be fine,” said Danny, too intensely. “It’ll blow over.”

Casey shrugged. “Sure.”

“We’ve got to write the show.”

Casey laughed. It came out bitter and hard. “You’ve got to retire that joke,” he said, and then he got up from the desk. “I’ll be—I’ll be back in a few. Get started without me and I’ll pick it up when I get back.”

“Okay,” said Danny, watching him with worried eyes.

 

_“You’re really nice, Danny,” said Jennifer, with great and soul-crushing sincerity._

_“Thanks.”_

_“I just don’t think we’re a great couple, you know?” She looked worried. She was twisting her ponytail around and around in her fingers._

_“I get it.”_

_“I really want to be in love.”_

_“I can see why.”_

_“And I just don’t think we’re there.”_

_“No, I think you’re right,” said Dan, who had been thinking about Jennifer’s breasts for several months non-stop before she had finally agreed to come with him to a party and made out with him in Chris’s mom’s bedroom. He wasn’t sure what love would feel like; maybe it would be like this, feverish and full of lust, but he thought it would probably feel different._

_That didn’t help, though. He had felt_ something _for Jennifer, and getting dumped was its own feeling, like molten lava in his stomach, like he was choking on something and couldn’t get any air._

 

Casey came back about half an hour later. Dan looked up as he walked in; Casey didn’t look different, really. Tight around the shoulders. But normal enough.

Casey sat down at his desk. “What do you have so far?”

“I was working on this thing on the Cardinals.”

“McGwire’s injuries?”

“Yeah.”

“Read it to me.” Casey leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. Dan cleared his throat and started to read, and Casey broke in a few beats later.

And that was that. They were back to normal. Sort of. Kind of.

 

Natalie cornered Dan after the show. “ _Well?_ ” she hissed.

Dan shook his head, tugging off his mic. “False alarm.”

“False—you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Natalie, while I appreciate your concern, it’s really—” but then she was dragging him away, her grip like iron around his arm. He went for fear of losing a limb.

She hauled him into the stairwell. “What do you _mean_ false alarm?”

“We talked about it. It’s fine. It’s just a thing.” He waved a hand dismissively. “It’ll go away.”

She raised her eyebrows, staring at him with naked disbelief. “Casey ‘Emotional Vault’ McCall worked up the nerve to _say_ something to you about it, and you think it’s just a thing that will go away?”

Dan shook his head again. “You make it sound so…”

“Serious? Important? _Real?_ ”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And you think it isn’t?” There was an interesting blend of pity and contempt in her face.

“Nat. Come on. He’s done stuff like this before. He’ll move on to somebody else soon.”

“Dan,” said Natalie, “you’re dumber than a sack of potatoes, and I don’t say that lightly. I had it backwards. _He’s_ secretly in love with _you_.”

“He’s not—it’s not like that.” Dan made a face. The idea made him uneasy in ways he couldn’t define. “This is just—he’s _comfortable_ with me. That’s different.”

“This explains so much,” she said under her breath. “What did he _say,_ Daniel?”

“Not a lot.”

She flung her hands in the air in dramatic dissatisfaction. “Fine! Don’t tell me.”

“I’m telling you!”

“Your pants are on the line here, bud.”

“You realize we don’t actually suffer that much when you take our pants. It’s much crueler to the crew.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” said Natalie, suddenly serious. “Not even Dana.”

Dan exhaled sharply. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Not that there’s anything to tell. I mean, that’s kind of the point. One of the points.”

“The points?”

“The points of consideration.”

“You considered points?”

“Several of them.”

She sighed. “I’m not surprised.”

“Hey, it was a lot to think about!”

“I bet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I am not in the _slightest_ surprised that you overthought this.”

“I didn’t overthink it! I thought it the appropriate amount!”

“You overthought it, and you’re going to blow it.”

He blinked. “Whoa, okay. What—what’s that about?”

“Casey is secretly in love with you, you want to kiss him again, and you’re dicking around wasting time on _lists?_ How many more chances do you think you’re going to _get_ at true love? You think you can afford to go wasting them just because your soulmate is kind of a stuffed shirt dillweed?”

“Hey! Wait. Uh.” He floundered for something to say while she watched him.

She shook her head sadly, still clutching her clipboard to her chest. “Get it together, Dan.”

“You get it together!” he yelled after her a beat too late. She didn’t dignify that with a response.

 

Casey had gone home already. He was microwaving a TV dinner, half-heartedly, when his phone rang.

“Yeah?”

“Seriously,” said Danny, “are we okay?”

“We’re fine.”

“Natalie’s freaking me out here.”

“That’s what she does.”

“It does seem to be a hobby for her.”

“Almost a sport.”

“She freaks me out recreationally.”

“The way some people play golf.”

“She has this idea.” Danny sounded hesitant. “It’s a pretty crazy idea.”

“Most, if not the vast majority, of her ideas are crazy. It comes of being unstable.” The microwave beeped at him. He opened it, cradling the phone under his chin, and pulled the rest of the plastic wrap off the Salisbury steak and mushy corn side.

“She thinks you’re secretly in love with me.”

Casey stopped, staring at the black plastic tray, steam rising damply. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“I mean,” said Danny. “That would be—that would be kind of extreme. Right? Even for me, and I’m usually the king of getting too involved too fast, I mean, see recent history, I think a big part of the Rebecca disaster was that I kept talking about marriage and the future and forever and she wasn’t ready to commit to a shared locker at the gym much less a life together.”

“Why did you call me, Danny?” Casey was so tired. He wanted to eat his shitty dinner and lie down instead of thinking incessantly about how Danny wanted to sleep with him but not, apparently, _enough_.

“What?”

“Do you need to make me _say_ it? Is that where your ego’s at?”

“Casey—” Danny was taken aback.

“I figured it out when you and Rebecca broke up. That’s when I knew.” Casey realized distantly that he was breathing too hard, a cocktail of anger and shame. “And then the more I thought about it the more I knew—I realized it wasn’t—you think I’d take just anybody snorkeling?”

“You took _Sally,_ ” Danny said. “Excuse _me_ for not making the connection—”

“No! I did _not_ take Sally _metaphorically_ snorkeling, I slept with her, that’s not the same thing!”

“These metaphors really aren’t working for me.”

“Fine! Jesus. I’m secretly in love with you, only between you and me and Natalie, it’s not much of a secret anymore, is it?”

Danny went silent. Casey could still hear him breathing. The TV dinner looked unappetizingly gray.

“I don’t understand,” said Danny.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Casey yelled. “How much _more_ are you going to drag this out? Can I go now?”

“Casey—”

Casey hung up on him.

He ate the TV dinner in a bad mood while watching a rerun of Cheers. The food tasted terrible, which was at least familiar, if not strictly speaking pleasurable, from his divorce.

 

“Natalie,” said Dan.

“I’m in bed, Dan. This better be good.”

“I think I fucked up.”

He heard a rustle on the other end of the phone and then a clink. “Tell me more.”

“You were right.”

“Of course I was right. What was I right about?”

“Casey.”

“What _about_ Casey?”

“He’s—this doesn’t make any _sense,_ Nat. I feel like that part is important to get out there. It doesn’t make a single iota of sense. But. He is.”

“Secretly in love with you?”

“Yeah.”

“There you go.”

“You say that, but it is totally unclear to me where I go with this!”

“Where do you _want_ to go? Also, why are you calling me? Call Abby. You pay her for this.”

“She doesn’t tend to pick up this time of night.”

“I shouldn’t, either.”

“Natalie, you were right, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Sleep on it. That’s my advice.”

“Are you just saying that because you want to go to sleep?”

“Because I want to go _back_ to sleep, Dan.”

“I’m not sure sleeping’s going to help.”

“It’s not going to hurt, though, is it?”

“Probably not.”

“There you go.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s why you should sleep on it. Sometimes inspiration comes in dreams.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and also _I want to go back to sleep,_ so try and get some rest.”

“…Okay.”

Dan was sure he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, but after not sleeping much the night before he was out like a light not long after his head hit the pillow.

 

In the morning, Natalie’s plan had not led to any epiphanies, but at least Abby’s office was open. They got him in for her ten o’clock, and he was cooling his heels, desperately trying to look normal and cool and okay, when she called him in.

“So,” she said, settling down into her chair, “tell me what’s new.”

“The game wasn’t over.”

“Okay.”

“But,” he said to his hands, “I seem to have been playing the wrong game.”

“What?”

“If Casey was playing squash, I was playing ice hockey.”

“I’m going to need a little more than that to understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

Dan put his head back as far as he could, tipping his chin so he could look all the way back at the wall above his head. “I thought it was a sex thing.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What with the—I mean, there was tongue, you know?”

“Hmm.”

“And then Natalie said maybe he was in love with me, and I asked him, and he said he _was,_ which is—that wasn’t—what do I _do_ with that?”

Abby raised her eyebrows at him. “Do you have to do anything with that?”

“I—what?”

“It sounds like you’re feeling conflicted about this.”

“Yeah. I am.”

“So I’m asking, do you have to take some kind of action right now?”

“Not—I mean, not really, but it seems like I should say _something._ Casey—he’s going to be mad at me today.”

“Has he been mad at you before?”

“You know he has.”

“And yet you both survived. As did your friendship.”

“Abby…” He blew out a breath, letting it fill his cheeks. “It’s hard. Because it’s Casey. He’s been the one constant in my life for over a decade. He’s the only person I’ve _kept,_ out of all of them, except for my family, and that’s mostly because they’re hard to shake.” He managed a humorless chuckle. Abby didn’t laugh.

“You’re afraid of alienating Casey.”

“Well. _Yeah._ ”

“It’s not an unreasonable fear.” Abby folded her hands across her stomach. “So what are you going to do with this not-unreasonable fear?”

“I don’t know! That’s what I keep telling you. Do you actually listen to me, or are you some kind of Therapist Barbie where I keep yanking the cord and getting platitudes?”

She stared at him, levelly, and after a minute he dropped his eyes.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“What are you feeling, Danny?”

“I don’t know.”

“In your body.”

It was an exercise they’d done before. He sighed and started tabulating. “Uh. I’m breathing… fast. My heart’s beating fast. My stomach hurts.”

“What does that tell you?”

“That I’m freaking out. Which I knew!”

“When was the last time you felt physically comfortable?”

He looked away. “I don’t know.”

“Did you feel this anxious last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Day before that?”

“Yeah.”

“Since Casey kissed you?”

He put his hands over his face. “Maybe. Probably.”

“Can you tell him about it?”

He looked at her, and she looked back at him, cocking her head to one side. Somewhere between Therapist Barbie and a savage bird of prey.

“No,” he said finally. “I can’t—no.”

“Why not?”

“He knows I’m crazy! I don’t need him to know _how_ crazy!”

“Because you’re afraid that if he knows how severe your symptoms are, he won’t respect you. He won’t care about you.” She fixed him with a stare. “He won’t love you.”

He couldn’t answer her; he jerked away, so she wouldn’t see his face, how perilously close he was to actual tears. He’d cried with her a couple of times, talking about Sam, about family. Never about Casey.

“So the conflict,” she said with a soft and pitiless kindness, “is in part because you believe that if even _Casey_ really knew you, he couldn’t love you.”

“That’s…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Because your family know you better than anyone, right? And if _they_ don’t love you—”

“Stop!”

She gave him a few beats to breathe before she said, “You need to separate your fear from your feelings.”

“My—what?”

“Your fear about being vulnerable from your feelings, whatever they are, for Casey.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“What would it look like if you could?”

“Abby.”

“It’s a genuine question. I’m not inside your head. I can’t feel what you feel.”

Dan looked past her, fixating on a point on the wall where it looked there had been a thumbtack at some point. “I think…  God, that’s a hard question.”

“That’s what you pay me for.”

“I don’t know what to do with it.”

“If you were certain that Casey would continue to love you no matter how much he learned about you, what would you do?”

It was like being back in that wave on his favorite fluorescent yellow surfboard, watching the tube crashing down, walls of starkly brilliant sparkling blue closing in. He knew it was going to hit him, and it did, but this time it was different. He closed his eyes. He could remember what he hadn’t, before: the light dancing, scintillating through the waves, his eyes opening underwater and through the sting of it seeing a whole world he’d never imagined.

“I’d—” He swallowed and opened his eyes. “I’d go for it.”

“You’ve told me the reasons why you wouldn’t. How do you feel about those?”

“They’re _real,_ but—it would be—I think it would be worth it.”

“What are the reasons why you would?”

Dan laughed involuntarily. “You’ve _met_ him, right?”                                                                      

“Not really, no.”

“You’ve—okay, but you’ve seen him on television.”

“He’s a good-looking man.”

“And the biggest dork who ever lived, and a hugely pedantic jerk, but… that’s why we’re friends.” He pressed his knuckles against his eyelids. “That’s why we work.”

“So then,” said Abby, “you have to decide. What’s your tolerance for uncertainty? What’s the threshold where you decide it’s worth it to try?”

He put the back of his hand against his mouth, letting it rest there. He let himself remember, really remember, the way it had felt to kiss Casey, and how difficult it had been to sit near him and stand near him and not touch him since then.

“The threshold,” he said quietly, and through the window shades the daylight glowed.

 

The problem was—okay, there was definitely more than one problem. But one of the bigger problems was that, having readjusted the frame, having tweaked the tracking and bumped the audio to get the bigger picture, Dan didn’t know what to do with that bigger picture.

Casey, when Dan came into work after seeing Abby, was acting so perfectly normal that Dan swayed for a moment in the doorway of their office, like someone had planted a hand on his chest and shoved. Was it even _possible_ that it had happened? Had Casey said anything, done anything, at all? _Was_ Casey going to get over it?

He found himself sneaking looks at Casey. He had an unvoiced suspicion that Casey could tell he was doing it, and that he was slowly driving Casey insane. Which would have been only fair, given how much of Casey’s life had been dedicated to making Dan tear out his hair, but felt wrong now that he knew that Casey had a Dan-shaped weak spot.

Two days into it, Casey hissed, “ _Stop_ that.”

Dan didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He dropped his gaze back to the computer screen, and tried, with variable success, to write.

But he went back to it shortly thereafter.

Casey was handsome enough for television. That statement alone held a lot of information; it told the casual observer that he had a roughly symmetrical face, that he was probably tall, that he could be improved with a coat of foundation (who couldn’t?). But it didn’t tell the observer nearly enough. It missed critical information about his stupid, infectious smile, or the way he goggled in disbelief when the vending machine ate a five-dollar bill and refused to give up a Twix.

Casey: the consummate dork, disguised as a hunk. He was getting more and more irritated about the election news, and there was a growing sense of dread about George W. Bush, so blandly unimpressive and so personally stupid.

“That _asshole,_ ” Casey muttered under his breath when Dan was watching a clip of Dubya on his computer.

“Well, yeah.” Dan leaned back and sighed, cracking his knuckles. “Kind of his whole shtick. Lovable country down-home type, except he’s a poisonous twit from money.”

And then he saw Casey’s eyes flicker to his hands, where he had his fingers interlaced and facing away from him, and for a split second it was all there again. Casey had never been that good at poker.

“Casey,” he said, heart pounding. Casey looked up, and met his eyes, and saw at once that he’d noticed.

 

Casey had something cutting ready to say, to distance himself, but he couldn’t make himself say it when he saw Danny’s face: lost and a little frightened. Danny was blinking, like he was confused.

“The thing is,” said Danny, “it didn’t occur to me.”

“What didn’t?”

“That you meant—” Danny shrugged uncomfortably. “People don’t fall in _love_ with me, by and large. Not, uh, not once they get to know me, which I would assume you _do._ ”

“Yeah, well,” said Casey sharply. “Apparently I did somewhere along the way. Joke’s on me, right? You can drop it now.”

“Casey—”

“God, you’re worse than _Florida._ ”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you, I just have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Florida! Our fucking _swing vote central—_ ”

“Still can’t tell what you’re mad at me about!”

“Make up your _mind!_ ” Casey ran a hand over his hair. “You keep bringing this up. Either stop _talking_ about it or do something!”

“Okay,” said Danny. He’d gone ghostly white.

“ _Thank_ you,” muttered Casey, turning back to his computer. He’d type some Hemingway until he’d calmed down again.

“Go out with me.”

“What?” Casey spun around in his chair.

Danny had his chin up, meeting Casey’s eyes. “Go out with me.”

“We can’t—what?”

“It’s going to get repetitive any time now, but I’ll say it again. Go out with me.”

“ _Where?_ ”

“Realistically, probably my apartment. My building has an elevator straight up from the parking garage, I don’t have to go through the lobby. So I don’t know that it really counts as going _out_ with me, more like staying _in_ with me, but I didn’t want it to be linguistically ambiguous.”

“Danny…” Casey’s cheeks were hot, and his pulse was thundering in his ears. “What are you…”

“I’m saying I’ve thought about it, and we should go snorkeling.”

Casey looked out at the bustle of the office through their glass walls, and then back at Danny, and then back out.

“You’ve lost your _mind,_ ” he said at length.

Danny shrugged. “Possibly. But, uh, do you want to?”

“ _When?_ ”

“After the show, I guess?”

“You _guess?_ Have you thought about this at all?”

Danny laughed hollowly. “Way, way too much.”

“You realize…” Casey swallowed with a dry click. “I’m not just—this isn’t…”

“I know,” said Danny with an alien calm. “For me, too.”

Casey stared at him. Danny turned back to his laptop.

“After the show,” Casey echoed.

Danny nodded without looking up.

 

The rest of the day was bizarre. Casey couldn’t believe it; he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. At the same time, he couldn’t _not_ believe it. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He kept looking at Danny. He’d seen Danny looking at him, and it had made something unpleasant twist in his gut every time; now it was different, now every time he caught Danny looking at him it was like a hot whisper in his ear, a breath on his neck, and he shifted uncomfortably. The rundowns were patchy, Natalie repeating herself to get his attention, Dave kicking him under the table.

The show was a mess. They kept dropping cues and blowing lines. Dana made explosively unhappy noises in their mics, and Casey couldn’t look too closely at Danny’s face without fumbling it all over again.

After the show Danny tore out his mic and left the studio like his hair was on fire. Casey was struggling to get his mic off when Dana strode up to him and smacked on the side of the head.

“Ow!” He gaped at her.

“What did you do _this_ time? I swear to God, Casey!”

“I didn’t do anything!” he protested.

“I know you! You said something to Danny. You’re going to go _fix_ this.”

“It’s not—”

“Go!” She smacked him again.

“Fine, fine!”

So he had an excuse for moving towards their office at a brisk march that turned into a half-jog. And then he was almost running, through people who scattered out of his way.

Danny was standing in the office, back to the door, hand on his black leather jacket on their coat rack.

“What are you waiting for?” said Casey. His voice came out gritty and unfamiliar.

“Right.” Danny shook his head and grabbed his jacket. “Ready when you are.”

Casey realized he was still wearing his show jacket, and he wrestled out of it as fast as he could, yanking his tie off. He picked up his windbreaker. “Not here,” he said in a low voice.

“Obviously,” said Danny, in a tone that was clearly supposed to be arch but did not succeed.

“Come on.”

But in the end he stood back and he let Danny go out of their office first, and he followed in Danny’s wake. The bullpen was curiously silent as they went through; people expecting the pyrotechnics of a fight.

“My car,” Danny said under his breath as they got into the elevator and he palmed the button.

Casey didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded.

Danny rested his forehead against the metal of the doors. “We’re not doing a great job of being _subtle_ about this,” he said with a strangled laugh.

“I’m not—doing such a great job of _caring_ about that, right now,” said Casey. He reached out.

“Security cameras in the elevator,” said Danny sharply. Casey glanced up, yanking his hand back.

The elevator ride took a million years. Someone else got on, and Casey clenched his jaw and stared resolutely at the blinking red numbers ticking down.

When they got to Danny’s car, Casey slid in to the passenger side and slammed the door shut, and then realized he couldn’t let go of the door handle. He was clutching it with white knuckles.

Danny put the keys in the ignition and then paused, taking a deep, audible breath. “We don’t,” he said, voice wavering. “If you—”

“Shut up and drive.”

Danny ran a hand across his mouth. He started the car.

Casey didn’t touch Danny in the car, even though in the darkness it would have been easy to put a hand on his thigh—easy, and impossible, at the same time. He said nothing, because he couldn’t think of what to say. Danny knew everything now. He knew what Casey felt and what he wanted, and he’d said it, he’d said _let’s do it,_ like it was somewhere he wanted to go. Casey hadn’t been this scared since Lisa went into labor.

He didn’t touch Danny in the car, or in the elevator up to Danny’s apartment, or while Danny was unlocking the door. He didn’t even touch Danny once he’d followed Danny through the open door and the door shut behind them, the apartment flooding with a wash of fluorescent light from the kitchen when Danny hit the switch, because the blinds on the picture window were wide open to the night beyond them. Their reflections were outlined on the black glass as if it were a mirror.

Danny walked over and closed the blinds, yanking the cord, and then he turned back around to face Casey.

Fluorescent light had never been flattering for Danny; Casey knew that. It wasn’t flattering for anyone. It washed them out, turned them greenish. Danny looked almost ill, harsh shadows behind him, light reflecting now off the white of the closed blinds.

Casey had never, that he could remember, wanted to kiss someone more.

And in that moment it _was_ possible; it _was_ easy. He walked up to Danny with two long steps and took Danny’s face in his hands and kissed him, and it was just like it had been on the couch, only _better,_ because now Danny was on board, fully on board with the plan.

Danny was _touching_ him, grabbing him with greedy hands, pulling him in so tightly that they were breathless with it. Casey groaned helplessly.

Danny drew back far enough to lean his forehead against Casey’s, closing his eyes. “You should know,” he whispered. “I’m—I’m a complete mess, Case. I’m crazy.”

“I—” Casey couldn’t think what to say, but he knew it mattered. He settled on, “You’re _mine.”_

Danny laughed shakily. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Please,” Casey murmured, watching Danny’s eyes open. “Can we—”

“ _Yeah_.” Danny went back for another kiss, and Casey groaned again as Danny gently took his lower lip between his teeth. Not a bite, but a suggestion.

Danny put his hands on Casey’s elbows and tugged, and Casey found himself sinking down as Danny sat on the couch, pulled along until Casey was kneeling over Danny’s lap. It was a strange position to be in, awkward, undeniably sexual and also oddly juvenile.

“Okay?” Danny whispered between kisses.

Casey took a deep breath and then let himself the rest of the way down. Danny’s hands dropped to his ass and squeezed, hard, as Danny sucked in air through his teeth.

Casey rocked slightly, in a daze, Danny’s dick hard and trapped in his jeans, to the left of his fly; Casey put his palm over it, clumsily. Danny’s head sagged over the back of the couch, and he made a quiet, broken noise, staring at the ceiling.

“Jesus,” said Casey thickly. “Danny, I’ve never—I want to—”

Danny waved negligently, a gesture that could have meant _go on,_ but Casey thought it probably meant _go ahead,_ so he reached for the fly of Danny’s jeans, and Danny’s hips bucked up.

“Oh, please, _please,_ ” said Danny in a low, desperate voice.

Casey unzipped Danny’s pants and put his hand in, and Danny’s cock was hot and twitching under his hand. Danny bit his lip.

There was a moment of uncertainty; should he—what would—but in the end he thought, _to hell with it,_ and he slid off the couch, onto his knees. He’d been watching—well, the Internet had its uses, didn’t it? Danny sat up straighter, looking down at him with wide eyes and an attentiveness verging on panic, but then Casey opened his mouth and Danny shut his eyes again.

He had no idea what he was doing. Somehow, porn never taught you things like how to breathe. He ended up wrapping a hand around the base and putting the rest in his mouth. He knew moving was important, so he did, and Danny was making steady keening noises, quiet at first and getting louder and louder, so he thought he was probably doing a decent job. And he couldn’t _stand_ it, it was too much, so he had to use his other hand to unzip his own jeans and then he switched hands so he could jerk himself off with his right hand, timing the strokes to each stroke of his hand on Danny’s cock. Danny’s eyes flew open; he saw Casey’s arm moving in time; and he seemed startled by his orgasm, body tensing as he came in Casey’s mouth without warning.

Casey sputtered, hot come sluicing into his mouth, even as he came, too, in a surge of delirious pleasure.

Danny’s hands were on his face, touching his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, and Danny was laughing, sounding amazed. “You—oh, my God. You—I want to—Casey, that was—”

Casey grabbed a Kleenex from Danny’s end table and spat into it. “Could have used some warning!”

“Me, too!” Danny gestured at Casey. “You’re—I have paid _money_ for less erotic performances!”

Casey groaned, rubbing his face with his less-damp hand. “Give me a _break,_ okay? It was very… inspirational.”

“Oh, I am _not_ complaining. That is not what is happening here.” Danny was still grinning; it wasn’t fading from his face.

Casey straightened up, bracing his hands on his thighs, and then they were staring at each other. Still under the fluorescent lighting that made Danny look hollow-cheeked, but everything felt different. Everything _was_ different. He felt light-headed.

“Ask me to stay,” said Casey.

Danny raised his eyebrows. “Why do I have to ask you? Why aren’t you asking me?”

“Because we’re in your apartment. And you were the one who didn’t want to do this in the first place,” said Casey, through the unfamiliar taste in his mouth, the throb in his softening cock. Something dragged the rest of it out of him: “And I’m in love with you.”

Danny looked off into space for a minute, nodded, and said, “Fine. Stay?”

“Yeah.”

Danny bent forward and kissed him. For a second Casey instinctively recoiled—he could still taste the come in his mouth—but Danny didn’t seem to care, and Casey couldn’t help leaning up into it, the angle bad, his knees aching, but a joy that was bigger than his skin filling him like a light.

 

Dan watched Casey disappear into the bathroom. “You want sweats?” he called. He had some of Casey’s sweats in a back drawer.

The toilet flushed. “Yeah, thanks,” Casey yelled back. A minute later he came out, jeans draped over his arm, spattered with come. He’d taken his shirt off, too; it had probably suffered some blowback. Dan liked to make fun of his squash habit, but Casey’s stomach was firm, the muscles of his thighs—

Casey stopped, looking at Dan, faintly defensive. “What?”

Dan shook his head. “You’re just—you look really good.”

Casey turned red, flushing down his chest. “Well,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Dan burst out laughing. “You sound like we’re at a debutante ball!”

“Yeah, well, _somebody_ promised me _sweatpants,_ ” said Casey scathingly, but without any real annoyance, “so I’m just standing around naked and it’s a little awkward!”

Shaking his head, still chuckling, Dan walked into the bedroom. “And of _course_ your response to awkwardness is to go full yes-ma’am-no-ma’am on me.”

“When has it not been?” asked Casey, closer behind Dan than he expected, and a second later Casey’s arms were folding around him.

Dan leaned back into him, the way so many women had leaned into Dan. It felt somehow contrived, being on the other side of it, but he _wanted_ to, damn it.  

Casey said, low and intense, right into his ear, “And when the hell did you steal my favorite sweatpants?”

Dan laughed again helplessly. “You _left_ them here, you idiot! Don’t you remember? We were doing that charity walk or whatever?”

“Gimme.” Casey reached past Dan to pull them out of the drawer.

Dan hip-checked him. “Make me.”

“Oh, what, you’re going to stop me?”

“Maybe,” said Dan, and turned in for another kiss.

Casey sighed into his mouth. It was going to be a while before Dan could get it up again, but there was something to be said for this: for a moment of peace, where Casey’s hands rested on Dan’s hips, the rise of his chest brushing Dan’s.

“Maybe I just like to have you wandering around the place naked,” said Dan.

Casey laughed—and Dan hadn’t realized he’d been half-holding his breath for it, waiting to see what Casey did. But Casey was smiling at him, smiling against his lips as Casey gave him an off-center kiss, and this was so much better than anything he’d hoped for.

The fear didn’t stop. It didn’t stop when they got into bed, Casey all elbows and knees as he settled; it didn’t stop when Casey took advantage of the darkness and their proximity to kiss him again, languidly and sweetly, over and over.

But it was easier, now, to believe. That someone could _see_ him, as he was, and still—still feel this way.

 

Casey woke up in the darkness as Danny shifted, and he mumbled something, still half-asleep.

“Casey.” Danny’s voice was so quiet, he almost lost it.

“Hm?”

“You awake?”

“Mm-hmm.” Casey knew the rules, from long cohabitation: when someone said that, by God, you were awake. You _made_ yourself awake. So he dragged himself up from the sweet black syrup of sleep, preparing himself for some conversation that would make him feel like he’d just showed up pantsless on final exam day for a class to which he’d never gone.

“Good,” said Danny, and shifted, and then he was breathing against Casey’s hip, and Casey heard a small, shocked noise come out of his own mouth.

Danny clearly hadn’t done this a _lot_ more than Casey had. Sally, for instance, had a way of moving so that she took all of him at once; Danny wasn’t doing that. But Danny was making soft noises around him, the vibrations driving him nuts, and then Danny’s hands slid up his thighs, and he couldn’t help putting his hands on Danny’s neck—not trying to hold him in place, but to _feel_ him, to feel the muscles working, the faint tremor as Danny strained to keep the pace. And when Casey could feel that it was inevitable, he grunted, pushing at Danny’s head—Danny drew back just as Casey came, pulse after pulse on his own stomach.

Danny breathed heavily in the darkness, sliding his fingers through Casey’s come. Casey’s abs twitched at the touch.

“Can I—” Danny’s fingertips circled. “I want to rub off on you.”

“Yeah,” said Casey, still muzzy with sleep but full of a soaring, benevolent goodwill.

And then there was Danny’s weight over him: a split-second of panic, the sensation of being crushed, only to be overwhelmed by how good it felt. Danny’s cock sliding through Casey’s come, until Danny was holding himself up on trembling arms. Casey reached up, wrapped his hands around Danny’s ass, and Danny gasped and came almost silently, Casey’s come starting to drip off his sides as Danny’s hit him.

Danny was shaking when Casey slid his hands up Danny’s back and pulled him down. It seemed terribly important, somehow, that Danny feel what Casey felt; that Danny understand the overpowering _need,_ the way Casey couldn’t get close enough to him. So Casey squeezed, until he could feel Danny’s breath evening out, until the tension in Danny’s neck and shoulders eased and he leaned his forehead against Casey’s.

It was all easier in the dark, Casey thought, and wondered uneasily what would happen in the morning.

“The thing is,” said Danny, still almost inaudible, breath gusting over Casey’s face, “you don’t—you haven’t seen what I’m like, up close and sexual.”

“Don’t you mean personal?” Casey found that he was quiet, too.

“No. Not really. I’m not kidding. I’m a mess.”

Casey ran a hand over his side, capturing some of the semen, liquid now and making a sticky slow drip onto the sheets, and smeared it on Danny’s naked back. “I’m aware.”

“Augh!” Danny huffed a surprised laugh, ragged around the edges. “I’m serious. You have no idea. And when you figure it out, when you get it, you’re going to want to run, and it’s going to ruin _everything_. Everything.”

Casey made a vague _hmm_ noise. “I don’t think so.”

“I can barely—I can barely stand to stay in _bed_ with somebody.”

“Even me?”

Danny mumbled, “Yeah,” letting his forehead slide away from Casey’s, muffling his reply in the pillow next to Casey’s head.

“You don’t have to,” said Casey. “I mean, I _like_ it, but if you want me to go—”

“I _don’t_ want you to go.” Danny sounded wretched. “It’s just hard to be here.”

“Is it always like that?”

“Yeah.”

“What do I do to make it easier?”

There was a long silence. Casey could feel Danny’s heartbeat, pounding over his.

“I don’t know,” said Danny. “No one—I never told anyone. They never asked.”

“Was it like that with Rebecca?”

It was hard to say her name out loud, even in the hushed cathedral of the bedroom. Danny tensed.

“It was,” Danny finally said. “I never—I’d just—I didn’t sleep much when she was over.”

“Were you thinking the same things?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Casey thought about it for a while, about how Danny was holding himself still, about the things he knew from Danny’s life and the things he didn’t. The burdens of silence.

Danny turned his head so his breath tickled Casey’s ear. “I want you to stay.”

“Good.”

“I don’t know how to stop freaking out, though.”

“Would it be better if I slept on the couch?”

Danny hesitated. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I could try,” Casey offered, tentative. Then he added, because he had never been capable of holding in a stray thought in his life, “You could enjoy this luxurious wet spot.”

Dan flicked his ear with unerring aim in the darkness.

“Ow!”

“I’m having a _confessional moment_ of _vulnerability,_ here,” grumbled Danny, “and I think you could stand to show me a _little_ respect.”

“I—” Casey found he didn’t know the right words, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try, at least. He squeezed Danny again, the heat and weight of his body almost unbearable in the closeness of the night. “You have no _idea_ how much I respect you.”

Danny tensed. “Is this a prelude to thanking all the little people who helped you get where you are?”

“No. God, no.”

“Because I gotta tell you, that one _never_ works as a pick-up line.”

Casey dug his fingers into the meat of Danny’s back, and Danny groaned. “I rely on my many attributes and skills.”

“That’s—that’s weak.” Danny kept shifting to get Casey’s fingers further into the muscles of his shoulder blades.

Casey kneaded at the tense muscles. “Hey, do you want a backrub?”

“What?”

“It’s one of my skills. Right up there with my attributes.”

“You have _never_ offered me a backrub before.”

“Lot of firsts tonight.” 

Danny laughed. “True enough.”

Casey let his fingers find a knot and press in.

Danny let out a deep sigh, and then he said, “Yeah, okay.”

“Roll over.”

So with Danny face-down in a pillow, Casey straddled his back and leaned in. He’d stayed married all ten disastrous years in no small part because of his backrubs; they’d always been something he’d kept to himself, a pleasant secret, part of him that was only for the person he’d decided to spend his life with.

 Danny started making noises as Casey put pressure on the knots in his back, and by the time Casey was finished, Danny had gone boneless.

“How you doing?” Casey murmured, sliding back down next to Danny. Outside, it would be getting light.

“Mmmmf,” said Danny, and then his mouth slowly went lax and he started to snore.

 

When Dan woke up to the bleat of his alarm in the morning, there was a moment of absolute disorientation. Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, in the world, because there was someone _next_ to him, there was someone in his bed and his brain reacted with panic before he was awake enough to understand it. So he was sitting upright, flailing the pillow into the side of Casey’s head, before he realized what was happening.

“What!” said Casey, swatting at the pillow, and then his eyes opened and he gaped at Dan.

“I, uh,” said Dan.

His alarm was still going off. He reached out unsteadily to slap it off.

The room was still pretty dark—good curtains did that for you—even though it was eleven in the morning. (Dan favored a streamlined morning routine that left him barely enough time to squeak into work before the noon rundown.)

Casey was still staring at him with wide eyes.

Several things hit Dan at once: the realization that his back felt _fantastic,_ that he’d possibly never slept that well and certainly not at any time in the prior ten years, and how terrified Casey looked, not unlike a deer staring into headlights.

“The thing is,” said Dan, “I think I’m in love with you.”

Casey put his hand over his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“Wait, is that the good kind of Jesus or the bad kind of Jesus?”

Casey lowered his hand, starting to grin. “There isn’t a—there’s no _bad kind of Jesus,_ Danny, honestly!”

“See, these are the finer theological points I deeply need you to explain to me.” Dan was proud of keeping a straight face for the whole thing. His heart was pounding.

“C’mere,” muttered Casey, and he pulled Dan down for a kiss.

Dan luxuriated in it for a few minutes (and in the utterly unfamiliar sensation of feeling _rested_ while kissing in the _morning_ ) before saying, “Unless you’re going in to work naked, you’re going to need clothes and stuff.”

Casey froze, staring at him, and then sat up and said, “Shit! Shit.”

“It’s okay. I’ll tell Dana we had such a violent and manly fight that you had to go to the dentist to have a loose tooth looked at.”

“ _Why_ would that make it okay?”

“Wouldn’t it? It seemed like it would.”

Casey cracked up, laughing and naked and _in Dan’s bed,_ and Dan couldn’t quite reconcile it all. But—

“The sex was good, right?”

Casey threw him a withering look. “No, I just make a _habit_ of coming all over myself multiple times in one evening.”

“Hey, I’m not one to judge what happens between a man and his Skinemax—”

“Oh, for—”

“—but I.” Dan shrugged. “I had a really good time.”

Casey’s face softened. “Me, too.”

“Want to do it again?”

“ _Now?_ ” Casey’s mouth fell open. “We have to go to work!”

Dan was laughing. “No, you moron. After work. We should get takeout or something.”

“Like a date?” Casey squinted at him, clearly weighing the idea.

“Yeah.”

Casey nodded decisively. “Cool.”

 

And that was how it went, pretty much.

Dana said, “Fine, _don’t_ tell me what happened.”

Dan protested, “I told you! Manly fighting! There was wrestling. I think I established dominance.”

“In your dreams!” shouted Natalie from her seat at the table. “Dana, if we’re going to put Jupiter Smith in the ten-block, we need to move the news about Miami to the forties.”

“That’s fine,” said Dana.

“Manly wrestling! It was very manly.”

“Did you get pedicures?” asked Kim solemnly. Dan flipped her off. She clapped her hands to her cheeks in mock surprise.

Casey missed the rundown completely, but when he came in he did brush up against Dan in the doorway and give him a slow, filthy smile, so there was that. Dan had a habit of forgetting that Casey _did_ have moves—several of them—and being on the receiving end of them was somewhere between delightful and bizarre.

But something, at long last, was going right. And Dan wasn’t about to get in its way.

Natalie cornered him shortly after that, herding him into the green room and cutting him off from any routes of egress, before hissing, “Did you _do_ it?”

He glanced around, hunting for some escape.

“Daniel! You will answer me or you will face the consequences!”

“I did it,” he said, giving in. “We did it.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Was it _good?_ ”

“That’s the sound of purely prurient curiosity. I won’t indulge it.”

“Fine, but I’m assuming it was bad.”

“It wasn’t.”

“There you go. Was that so hard?”

His mouth twitched. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on.”

He couldn’t help snickering, and then it turned into full-blown laughter, and after glaring grimly at him for a moment she started laughing, too.

“Well, good for you.” She wiped an invisible tear from the corner of her eye. “You’re one lucky son of a bitch.”

“Really?”

“Come on, you have good friends, a qualified therapist, a great job, _and_ now you’re getting laid on the regular. You’re living the dream.”

“Huh,” he said slowly. “I guess I am.”

She smacked him upside the head. “Don’t screw it up!”

“I’m trying not to! You think hitting me is going to make me a better boyfriend?”

“ _Something_ should.”

“You’re the meanest of all the flying monkeys.”

“I’ll tell the wicked witch you said that.”

“Oh, please don’t.”

Natalie rocked back on her heels, almost overbalancing. She wasn’t quite meeting his eyes. “Dan,” she said, softer, “I do—I want you to be happy, okay? I think all of us do. And if you can manage it, that would be great.”

“No pressure or anything.” He cracked his neck nervously.

“No. I mean it. You—just do what you can.”

“I slept,” he said abruptly. “It was—I _never_ sleep. Not with anybody there. But I got a backrub and I slept like a baby.”

“It’s not a great comparison, you know. Babies sleep in small and frequent bursts.”

“Fine, whatever, I slept like a log.”

She startled him with a hug. “Good,” she said, cleared her throat, and turned briskly. “I expect to see the footage from Tokyo on my desk in half an hour or I’m telling Jeremy you were the one who hid an egg in his desk.”

“You wouldn’t! For one thing, he’s an asshole, and for another thing, friends have each other’s backs!”

“He’s in therapy now and friends don’t hog footage from friends!”

“ _He’s still an asshole!”_ Dan shouted after her, but his words were lost on the breeze. Or at least the gust of air from the fan on Dave’s desk.

 

That night, Casey brought him something from his favorite sushi place.

“You don’t even _like_ sushi,” said Dan suspiciously.

Casey lifted his chin haughtily. “My tastes are elevated and refined. Of course I like sushi.” He poked at the roll on his plate. “This one even has cream cheese.”

Dan burst into laughter, and the corner of Casey’s mouth twitched.

Dan thought, _oh, holy shit, I was right. I’m in love with him._

And then: _and he’s in love with me._

And finally: _and we’re going to make it work._

He would have given almost anything to know whether he was right, in that moment—to be able to see into the future. Whether he and Casey, thirty, forty, fifty years down the line would still be slinging shit over the dinner table, having learned the painful lessons of love from spectacularly unsuccessful experiments. Whether George W. Bush was going to win the election. How long the show would last.

But Dan knew the important part, which was that Casey would remain Casey, and Dan would remain Dan. And that was enough.


End file.
